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Archive for the ‘Canadian Music’ Category

Sara Varon–Bake Sale (2011)

Posted in Canadian Music, Cook Book, Corb Lund, Cupcakes, Dogs, First Second :01, Food, Funny (ha ha), Sara Varon, Short Books, Travel on July 20, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: CORB LUND-“Dig Gravedigger Dig” (2012).

I’m not what you’d call a country music fan.  There’s a lot of reasons for this.  But most of the reasons have little to do with the music itself–some of which (the faster honkier tonkier stuff) I rather like.  Corb Lund is a Canadian country singer who I’ve heard of but don’t know anything about.

This song is a honky tonking, harmonica stomping, group singing song about digging graves.

This is the kind of country I could get used to. Whoo!

[READ: July 19, 2012] Bake Sale

Why not follow a cookbook with a book about cooking.  Bake Sale is a graphic novel about a cupcake who makes cupcakes.  He is friends with an eggplant and all of the residents of his Brooklyn neighborhood come into buy his wonderful baked goods (a bag of sugar loves his brownies and an egg gets coffee every morning).  Cupcake is also in a band with his friends: bagel on banjo, pear on bass, egg on horn, eggplant on trombone.

(After I read it, Sarah pointed out how odd it is that all of the characters are foodstuffs, and that the bag of sugar is eating something that contains sugar.  I noticed that (how could you not?) but I allowed for some cognitive dissonance I think).

Turns out that Eggplant’s Aunt Aubergine knows Turkish Delight, the famous chef.  And Eggplant is traveling to Turkey to visit Aunt Aubergine.  Cupcake would love to meet Turkish Delight, but he can’t afford an airplane ticket.  So cupcake has a choice to make–work longer hours and quit the band or simply not meet his idol.

Cupcake decides to work extra hours.  But not in his shop–he begins selling his cupcakes (and more) on the street.  I enjoyed his table laden with themed items (for a boxing match, for the blessing of the animals at the cathedral, and even dog biscuits for the Westminster dog show). (more…)

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Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.–Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1970)

Posted in Canadian Music, Death, Funny (ha ha), Hitler, Homer, Kurt Vonnegut, Marriage Trouble, Play (Drama), Sexism, The Cars, Violence, Wolf Parade on July 12, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: WOLF PARADE-Expo 86 (2010).

Wolf Parade is a strange band, no doubt. Both singers can craft super catchy songs, but they like to layer them with odd sounds and lots of song parts making the songs more challenging (and better in the long run).

“Cloud Shadow on the Mountain” starts the disc off with drums and an eccentric voice.  And the lyrics? “I was asleep in a hammock/I was dreaming that I was a web/I was a dream-catcher hanging in the window of a minivan/Parked by the water’s edge./I’d say that I was all alone.”

The song has some loud guitars, some great guitars riffs and (the most notable feature on the album) retro sounding keyboards.  On this song the keys play an alternate melody that compliments the song very well.  There’s some heavy rocking sections and a slowed down drums and vocals section.  It’s fairly exhausting how much is in this one song.  By the end, he’s repeating “you will never be born as a scorpion.”

“Palm Road” is a more straightforward and catchy song, although it’s certainly offbeat.  “What Did My Lover Say” opens with a cool guitar riff an counterpointed keyboards.  As with most of the songs on this record headphones or at least good stereo speakers really make a difference.  The rest of the album is hard to speak of in different terms because each song is unusual with angular guitars and interesting vocals.  The keyboards also provide unsettling atmospherics.   None of the songs are easy to sing along to, until one day the shifts in melody and phrasing sink in and it all sounds wonderful.

What I find notable about these songs is that they are all long (most are around 5 minutes) and they feel long–not in a dragging out way (although maybe “In the Direction of the Moon” drags) but in a–so much has been going on, this song must be really long kind of way.

Some other highlights include “Ghost Pressure” with its great keyboard riff (that feels not unlike The Cars).  Speaking of The Cars, the keyboards on “Oh You, Old Thing” have the great spacey Cars sound from the 80s.  “Pobody’s Nerfect” melds the catchiness that the guys are capable of with just the right mix of unexpectedness.  And the closing song “Cave-O-Sapien” seems to combine all of the best qualities of the above songs in to one–a great riff, catchy “oh oh ohs,” and bizarre lyrics, “I had a dream of a gorilla.”

This album is definitely not for everyone, but multiple listen reap big rewards.

[READ: July 8, 2012] Happy Birthday, Wanda June

I have been chugging along nicely through Kurt Vonnegut’s oeuvre.  My plan was to read all of his novels and then read his short stories.  And then maybe read his plays (I wasn’t sure about that last bit).  But as I mentioned yesterday, reading a simple play can be a delight (and can be a very quick read, too).

Vonnegut opens the book with a prologue about how and when he wrote the book.  It was originally a play called Penelope, and he thought it was terrible.  Fifteen years later he kept the basic idea and rewrote it as Happy Birthday, Wanda June.  And the idea is straight out of Homer.  In the Odyssey, Penelope is Ulysses’ long-suffering wife.  When Ulysses came home from his travels some twenty years later, he was feted as a hero and the world (well, his world) rejoiced (except for Penelope’s suitors, of course).

So in this play, Harold Ryan is a loud, manly hunter and soldier, ready and happy to kill anything in his way.  He has been on an expedition for eight years–his plane went down and he  is presumed dead–even Mutual of Omaha thinks so.  His wife, Penelope Ryan believes him to be dead and has been entertaining two suitors–Dr Norbert Woodly, a pacifistic doctor and Herb Shuttle, a vacuum cleaner salesman.  The only person who doesn’t presume him dead is their son Paul Ryan, who bristles not only at the thought of his father being dead, but even more so at these wimpy suitors.  Although Paul is too young to ever have rally known his father (he’s 12), he keeps hopes alive that his father will return one day.

What I like about the play is that it maintains Vonnegut’s voice right from the start.  It opens with a speech from Penelope:

My name is Penelope Ryan.  This is a simple-minded play about men who enjoy killing–and those who don’t. (more…)

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Dan LeFranc–“The Big Meal” (Lucky Peach, No. 4: American Food: Summer 2012)

Posted in Canadian Music, Dan LeFranc, Death, Drinking, Food, Funny (ha ha), Lucky Peach, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, Metric, Play (Drama), Short Books, Theater on July 11, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: METRIC-Live It Out (2005).

I enjoyed Metric’s Fantasies album so much that I bought their previous album (an album that I had written down as worth checking out about 5 years ago).  At first I was a little disappointed–the album doesn’t have the glow (or perhaps sheen or polish) of Fantasies.  Normally I prefer raw to polished, but it’s surprising to go the other way sometimes.  And after a couple more listens I really started to appreciate this album’s rawness.

The guitars are loud and pushy.  There are keyboards that dominate some songs, but they never make the songs poppy.  And Emily Haines’ voice sounds great.  The opener “Empty” has a lot of quiet sections, but the guitars really just burst forth.  It’s 6 minutes long but that’s mostly through a long intro and outro.  The rest of the songs stick firmly in the 3-4 minute range.  “Glass Ceiling” has a cool stuttering riff and a kind of awkward bridge–these first two songs kind of resist admittance (the piano/guitar solo is certainly a weird combination–which I like now of course).  “Handshakes” shows their more commercial side–a slick kind of guitar riff with Haines’ more aggressive vocals.  True the siren sound may turn off some, but it’s certainly a signature.  “Too Little Too Late” is a slow sultry number, but even more sultry is the sleazy-feeling (no doubt because of the keyboards) “Poster of a Girl.”  In addition to a cool spoken word section in French (the whole song is bilingual), we get the English lines “Coming in your pants/For the off chance/With a…poster of a girl.”

“Monster Hospital” is a fun punk blast that is still a live favorite for the band.  “Patriarch on a Vespa” has another rough riff with some cool bass.  It also features some disconcerting singing (ahahs that sound more than a little spooky).  “The Police and the Private” is one of the cool songs with easily singable but easily confusable lyrics.  While “Ending Start” has some great guitar riffs near the end.   “Live It Out” ends the disc with a staccato punk number.  It’s a perfect summation of Metric before they got more commercial.  And it’s a great addition for fans of the band.

[READ: July 8, 2012] The Big Meal

This play came as a supplement with Lucky Peach issue #4.

I have often maintained that it is much better to see a play than to read one.  Not a daring opinion, by any stretch. I have taken that to something of an extreme however, which means that I pretty much never read plays.  This has severely limited by Shakespeare intact, naturally.  It also means that a lot of great works are lost to me.

I’m using that information by way of introduction, not because I think this play compares to Shakespeare, but because this is one of a few plays that I have read recently that I’ve really enjoyed.  So I’m retracting some of my earlier thoughts about reading plays.  True, some plays with multiple characters can be confusing to keep straight (since defining characteristics are not given).  But in shorter plays or plays with not too many characters, it’s not so hard to read them.  And in fact, it can be a quick and enjoyable read.

Although this play complicates things immensely because of its (very cool) setup.  The setup is described in the introduction to the play: “The actors play multiple generations of one family…as they glide through time.  As the characters age, their “essences” pass from younger to older actors.”  So, the story takes places over a few generations of time.  There are eight actors.  Each actor plays multiple roles.  These roles correspond to the characters at certain ages.  So, for example, the youngest actor plays Character A as a child; the adolescent actor plays Character A as an older child; the middle-aged actor plays Character A as a middle-aged person, etc.   So that’s a little confusing (although I’ll bet it makes sense seeing it live).  What I like though is that this “gimmick” is not so much a gimmick at all, but a real indication of how we turn into our parents and an indication of how quickly time passes in this play. (more…)

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Heather O’Neill–“And They Danced by the Light of the Moon” (The Walrus, July/August 2012)

Posted in Bob Marley, Boredom, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Coldplay, Dance, Heather O'Neill, K'naan, Marriage Trouble, Sex, Short Story, Soccer, The Walrus, Virginity (Loss of) on July 4, 2012| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: K’NAAN-“Wavin’ Flag” (2009).

Like most people in America I don’t know much about K’naan.  This is despite the fact that this song (in a modified form) was the anthem for Coca-Cola and the 2010 World Cup and was HUGE (except in America where we like one and ignore the other).  There’s an article about K’naan in the July/August issue of The Walrus.  He is a Somali-born Canadian rapper and he is looking to break into the US market.

And that’s as much as I knew of him.  So imagine my surprise upon listening to this song to realize that it is an acoustic-pop song not unlike Coldplay (lots of Whoa-ohs) set to a martial beat.

It’s a catchy anthem indeed–made perfect for an event with lots of waving flags like the World Cup.  However, the original lyrics are impressive (and talk obliquely about his life in Somalia).

Out of the darkness, I came the farthest Among the hardest survival
Learn from these streets, it can be bleak Accept no defeat, surrender, retreat

So many wars, settling scores Bringing us promises, leaving us poor
I heard them say ‘love is the way’ ‘Love is the answer,’ that’s what they say

And yet the chorus is pretty uplifting:
When I get older I will be stronger They’ll call me freedom just like a wavin’ flag And then it goes back, and then it goes back And then it goes back, oh
Chorus aside, these lyrics aren’t exactly going to sell product, so it’s not surprising that the Coca Cola Celebration Remix has changed some lyrics:
Saying forever young Singing songs underneath the sun Let’s rejoice in the beautiful game
And together at the end of the day, we all say
Although this lyric could have been in either version
In the streets our heads are liftin’ As we lose our inhibition
Celebration, it surrounds us Every nation, all around us
And the chorus remains the same.
The remix is a bit more interesting musically.  The original is just him on an acoustic guitar with some drums.  It reminds me of Bob Marley (and references “Buffalo Soldier”).  The remix has a really cool drum intro.  It’s beefed up throughout as well.  I guess it’s easy to say it’s a sell out (but well, duh), but it’s still as catchy as the original without being too obnoxiously overproduced.  And heck, maybe people learned a bit about Somalia from it.  Stranger things have happened.

[READ: July 4, 2012] “And They Danced by the Light of the Moon”

Some stories are one thing at heart.  No matter how much you gussy them up and make them look all fancy, they’re always going to have heavy metal T-shirts under their formal wear (I should know).

And so it with this story set in the 70s in the Quebec town of Val de Loups (the fact that it is set here changes enough of the story that although the story is not atypical, it is at least in an unfamiliar setting (to me)).  Jules knows that he is in love with Manon.  Manon doesn’t know anything about love.  Jules is an only child, living in a trailer park, trying not to get beaten by his father. Manon is the youngest of 11 children (her mother kept trying until she had a girl).  She is beautiful with golden ringlets and a magical laugh and she is under the constant supervision and protection of her ten massive brothers (one is a wrestler, three work in the mines).

Jules is an intelligent boy who always gets in trouble.  He’s a class clown because he likes it when people pay attention to him, although he doesn’t really have any friends per se (when he gets in trouble, they aren’t there with him).  His last prank was an invitation to the aliens–spray painted in the school parking lot.  This gets him kicked out of the upcoming dance (even though he did a lot of the getting it setup).  He’s really bummed because Manon said she’d go with him.  Manon likes him because of the way he can roller skate.

Despite not being allowed into the dance, they meet up outside the building and go to a house in town where Jules is plant-sitting.  With the right music, the right lighting, the right setting, this would be a joyous romp of explored sexuality and post-dance bliss.  But this is Val de Loups, where no one leaves, where everyone is trapped. (more…)

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Margaret Atwood–I Dream of Zenia with the Bright Red Teeth (2012)

Posted in Bad Company, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Death, Dogs, Ghosts, Kathleen Edwards, Margaret Atwood, Marriage Trouble, Short Story, The Walrus, Tom Petty on June 18, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KATHLEEN EDWARDS-Voyageur (2012).

This is Kathleen Edwards’ latest album.  And every time I listen to it, it gets better.  Her songwriting has reached amazing heights.  The lyrics are wonderful and the melodies are just outstanding.  “Empty Threat” (“I’m moving to America…it’s an empty threat), opens the disc with a bouncy acoustic guitar and, eventually, a full band.  The lyrics for “Chameleon/Comedian” are wonderful: the juxtaposition between these two ideas is just amazing—each verse gets more complex.  I would quote them, but the whole song is great.  And, amazingly, the “I don’t need a punchline” is easy to sing along to as well.  “Soft Place to Land” is a nice ballad—a full band that never gets overwhelmed by any of the instruments—the violin adds a nice texture as do the military drums mid way through.  “Change the Sheets” is one of my favorite songs of the year.  It starts out slow, with simple guitars and more great lyrics.  As it builds (of course it builds) it grows into an amazing bridge/chorus that just dares you not to tap your feet.

“House Full of Empty Rooms” is like a minor palate cleanser before “Mint.”  “Mint” opens like a classic 70s rock song (Bad Company or Tom Petty), but she brings in her unique voice and phrasings and changes the song into something very different.  But again, that chorus–how can you not sing along to the catchy/voice-breaking chorus after the minor key verses?  The tension builds wonderfully.  “Sidecars” is a fun poppy track (“You and I will be sidecars, we chase down the hard stuff”).

“Pink Champagne” is a five-minute piano ballad.  It’s more akin to her earlier more country songs.  It’s a wee bit long but never overstays itself.  It’s followed by “Going to Hell,” which features some great screaming guitars in the midst of more delicate singing.  “For the Record” closes the album with a seven minute slow burner.  It begins quietly, and builds and builds–never the ecstatic heights–but with a chorus that is as catchy as it is mournful.

I have this CD in my car and every time it comes up, i just can’t stop listening.

[READ: June 18,2012] I Dream of Zenia with the Bright Red Teeth

I received this limited (autographed!) chapbook from The Walrus when I re-subscribed recently.  That’s pretty cool.  It has been sitting around because I thought it was a much longer piece.  When I received the latest issue of The Walrus, and saw that the same story was in there, well, I realized that this was just a short story and could be polished off pretty quickly.  The issue of The Walrus also told me that this story is a kind of follow-up to The Robber Bride.

I have never read The Robber Bride (I like Atwood quite a lot and yet have never read her most iconic books!).  So I would never have known that this was a sequel (of sorts).  As I said, I don’t know The Robber Bride, (and hope to read it maybe this year).  I don’t know exactly how it ties to the novel (the first line of the Wikipedia entry tells me that the three main characters are the same), and given the tone of the story, I assume it is simply catching up on them some twenty-five years later.

In this story, Claris, Tony and Roz (who are all women, I didn’t realize that right away) are going for their weekly walk in the woods together (because it’s good for you and Roz hopes to increase their cellular autophagic rates).  Tony and Roz bought (from a shelter) a dog for Claris called Ouida.  Ouida is a wild terrier mix (who hops on Roz’s orange coat and leaves footprints).

It quickly becomes apparent that Claris is something of a hippy—organic, vegetarian, communing with spirits and whatnot.  Claris just had a dream about Zenia.  Zenia (who I assume is in The Robber Bride, because why wouldn’t she be), was a woman from their past.  She stole a man from each one of them—with varying outcomes in each woman’s case.  Zenia died about twenty years ago but she has come back, Claris believes, to tell her about Billy. (more…)

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Jonathan Lethem–“My Internet” (New Yorker, June 4 & 11, 2012)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Canadian Music, Carly Rae Jepsen, Jonathan Lethem, New Yorker, Short Story, Technology on June 15, 2012| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: CARLY RAE JEPSEN-“Call Me Maybe” (acoustic) (2012).

I had never heard of this song until about three days ago.  I’m led to believe that this song is massive, and yet somehow I missed it (which is fine).  I first read about it  as “the song that Justin Bieber made famous.”  So I listened to it and I hated the overproduction of it.  Then one of the folks at NPR picked it as her favorite song of the year (the discussion was split 50/50 between love and hate).  And I had to agree that after another listen, it was really catchy.  But I still hated the overproduction.

One of the people in the discussion said that an acoustic version would be great.  So I found one (there are actually a ton online…this song really must be huge).  And indeed, the acoustic version is pretty nice.  It is insanely catchy (and remarkably sweet).   And her voice is very intriguing–I think her voice really makes the song.  Absent all of that obnoxious production, this is an enjoyable pop song (although, the keyboards are pretty awful still on this version–loose the keys, Carly).

One acoustic version (that’s barely 2 minutes long) is available here.

[READ: June 13, 2012] “My Internet”

I was poisoned against the story because I read just one line of Karen’s review: “Let’s face it – without Jonathan Lethem’s name on this, it’d never get out of a slushpile.”  That was a pretty big hurdle for this story.  And it never cleared it.   I’m going to have to agree with Karen—possibly not as harshly, but with a general….huh?  I have a hard time believing that this found a publisher.

The idea is kind of interesting:  there is a another internet tucked away inside the internet we all know.  There are only 100 people who are on it, and they were all sent special invitations to join.  There are only two rules on this Internet—no money and no animals.  But for some reason (explained by the end), the narrator is unhappy here, and he wants to create his own internet within this other internet (which is within the global internet).

And that’s pretty much it. (more…)

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#OccupyGaddis (2012)

Posted in #OccupyGaddis, Air, Big Books, Canadian Music, Concert, David Foster Wallace, Feist, James Joyce, Radiohead, Supergrass, The Velvet Underground, Thomas Pynchon, William Gaddis on June 11, 2012| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: FEIST-“Femme Fatale” (2011).

The funny thing about The Velvet Underground is that it seems like it would be very hard to fail at covering them.  Their songs are pretty open to interpretation.  But, it’s even more true if you wanted to do it pretty straight.  I mean, while Lou Reeds voice is unique, Nico’s isn’t really.  It’s slow and languorous, sexy and distant.  I would never have thought to describe Feist that way and yet she fits into the Nico mold very nicely.

This cover comes from the Velvet Underground Revisited show from 2011, with a band comprised of members of Radiohead, Air and Supergrass.  Feist did vocals for this one.  It’s not an earth-shattering cover.  In fact it’s pretty spot on.  Maybe everyone who hears this will start a band too.

You can hear it here.

[PLANNED: Summer 2012] #OccupyGaddis

I had my books all planned out for the summer.  A series of smaller books to get through before trying to tackle any really big books that are on my shelf (and there are plenty).

And then came #OccupyGaddis.

William Gaddis is an author, like Thomas Pynchon, who writes large, unwieldy novels which are something of a bedrock for contemporary American fiction–like The Velvet Underground–not many people have read him, but those who have all went on to write wonderful books.  And he forms a kind of continuum of (among many many others) Joyce>Gaddis>Pynchon>Wallace which means that I ought to be reading him.

I read JR about a decade ago.  I remember a few things about it–basic plot details and the fact that you never know exactly who is speaking.  I wasn’t keeping this blog then, so I didn’t exactly take notes on it or anything.  It’s kind of a blur.

So Lee Konstantinou is running #Occupy Gaddis this summer.  It is meant  to be an Infinite Summer type-deal.  Unlike Infinite Summer which was weekly, he’s planning on posting every two weeks.  I’ll try to do my weekly post (work permitting), by picking a midpoint as a Spoiler Line.  Since my recollection is that JR is like one large block of text with no breaks anywhere, my spoiler line will be pretty arbitrary.   But here’s his:

June 29: pp. 150

July 15: pp. 300

July 31: pp. 460

August 15: pp. 610

August 26: done!

(more…)

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Peter Stamm–“Sweet Dreams” (New Yorker, May 14, 2012)

Posted in Arcade Fire, Canadian Music, Constellation Records, Death, Fears, Mercury Rev, Michael Hofmann, New Yorker, Peter Stamm, Short Story, Siskiyou, Translation on May 29, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SISKIYOU-Keep Away the Dead [CST083] (2011).

I really enjoyed Siskiyou’s first album. This album updates the sound and makes it a bit bigger.  And yet somehow the album still sounds fragile.

The album is full of songs that are catchy, but not really easy on the ear.

The first song reminds me of Arcade Fire.  Something about the ringing guitar and crescendos.  But the recording feels more like a demo, much more intimate that Arcade Fire.  “Where Does That Leave Me” is an even more spare number, just vocals and guitar although it slowly builds.  “Twigs and Stones” is the first song that sounds like the bulk of the album—where Colin Huebert’s vocals really come to the fore.  His vocal style is loud and verging on the whiny (again, like Arcade Fire).  This song also has a lot of other instruments that percolate to the top—reminding me of older Mercury Rev.

“Revolution Blues” is the standout track for me, it’s incredibly catchy (and fun to try to sing in his eccentric voice).  The accordion and the minor key intensity is really powerful.  I guess it’s a shame that it was written by Neil Young, then (although the Siskiyou version is much better).  “Dear Old Friend” is a more country sound (which for me is shorthand for slide guitars), but it keeps the same style and feel as the other songs.  “Fiery Death” is the first song where percussion makes itself known very loudly.  It’s a cool introduction of loud thumping.  “Sing Me to Sleep” is a 2 minute lullaby and “Dead Right Now” is a 2 minute coda that ends the album nicely.

The disc is short (about 30 minutes) but a lot of emotion and craft is packed into it.  It’s really enjoyable.

[READ: May 24, 2012] “Sweet Dreams”

I’m always disconcerted when a story is in English but is set in another country.  Well, that’s not exactly right.  When it seems like it’s set in another country because the author is from that other country and he or she is writing about that other country without specifying it (usually because it is translated).  It’s very Amerocentric, but perhaps everyone thinks a story is set in their town unless told otherwise.  So I didn’t realize that this story was originally written in German (it was translated by Michael Hoffman), but it felt like it was taking place in Europe.  I actually guessed France, until later on it was revealed to be Switzerland.

There’s something cool about stories that are written elsewhere, especially if you don’t know the place well, it allows for almost anything to happen.  A couple riding a bus in Europe doesn’t mean the same thing as a couple riding a bus in, say Tallahassee.  But having set up that distinction, this story is about love.  And love is universal.

The story is written from the point of view of Lara, a shy bank worker.  She has been dating Simon for several months and they have recently moved in together.  They should be in the first bloom of love—on their own for the first  time (they never felt comfortable fooling around at their parents’ houses)—but her shyness in particular won’t loosen.  She doesn’t like him to see her naked, and they are very reserved in their love-making.  And from the start Stamm places a dark tone over the story.  The get a place in the town that he likes but it’s pretty run down.  He hadn’t brought much to the apartment, and he seems critical of some of her purchases.  He even comments that “forever is a long time” when she says that the towels she bought will last forever.  And then on the bus, a man, dressed in a long black coat stares at Lara over and over.  It may be innocent, but it’s still disconcerting.

When they get home, she takes a bath (she won’t let him in the bathroom) and asks him to go to the restaurant downstairs to buy a bottle of wine.  She finishes the bath and he’s not back yet, so she reads the paper.  Which is full of more grim news.  When she reads about a dead body found in the lake nearby and since we know she doesn’t feel comfortable about the restaurant downstairs, we know something bad has happened. (more…)

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Lorrie Moore–“Referential” (New Yorker, May 28, 2012)

Posted in Broken Social Scene, Canadian Music, Constellation Records, Esmerine, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Hospitals, Lorrie Moore, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Short Story, Silver Mt. Zion on May 25, 2012| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: ESMERINE-La Lechuza [CST080] (2011).

This album is a wonderful surprise.  I had not heard of Esmerine before this CD (they have put out two previous records on a different label).  All I knew about them was that violinist Becky Foon (who is all over the Montreal scene and who is really good) was one of the founders of this band.  So I expected some epic instrumentals ala all of the Constellation Recordings bands that she has played with (Godspeed, Silver Mt Zion, etc).

I was delighted by the opening fast marimba notes of “A Dog River”.  I’m not sure if the marimba can play minor key notes, but the melody that co-founder Bruce Cawdron plays is uplifting and mesmerizing.  When Becky adds her strings, it takes on a new element–a kind of wistfulness.  Then at nearly 3/4 of the way in, some loud guitars come in to give the whole song a feeling of urgency.  And all the while it is very filmic.  It’s a wonderful opening.  “Walking Through Mist” is a much slower piece, and the marimba adds contextual pacing–they’re still not minor key or sad marimba notes, but they are not as uplifting as on the first track.  “Last Waltz” introduces a vibrato’s piano as the primary instrument.  It is at once unsettling.   It’s also the first of three songs with vocals.  The vocals work well on this song–they fit the mood perfectly–especially the wordless singing at around 4 minutes.  But I have to admit that I like the instrumentals better.  The same can be said for “Snow Day for Lhasa” (another song with vocals) which I find a little too slow to be impactful (it actually reminds me of a very slow version of Broken Social Scene’s “Lover’s Spit”).

“Trampolin” introduces a harp and some vibrant percussion.  It’s uplifting and feels like a perfect song for a theatrical dance company to perform to.  “Sprouts” is an uplifting new-agey sounding track.  By itself it might veer uncomfortably into the new age scene, but amidst the songs of the album it works very well.  “Little Streams Make Big Rivers” returns to that slower sound from earlier.  But this song is short and feels like a slow building march.  By the half way mark when the drums kick in, the song is unstoppable.  The album proper ends with “Au Crépuscule, Sans Laisse” a slow filmic song that returns the album to the quiet sound it was toying with earlier.

I mentioned Lhasa earlier.  Lhasa was a Canadian singer who had international fame (from my own experience, I know that X-Files creator Chris Carter wanted to go see her live–I know this because I was friends with his assistant and she told me the tale of trying to find tickets for this show).  I checked out her stuff but it wasn’t for me.  Anyhow, Beckie and Bruce were supposed to tour with Lhasa for her 2010 album, but sadly, she died of breast cancer (at 37, Jesus), right after the album came out.  So this album is dedicated to her.  The final song “Fish on Land” is a previously unreleased version of a Lhasa song that was made with Bruce and Beckie.  I wish I liked it more, but as I said, she’s not my thing.

I absolutely love the instrumentals on this album and I’m going to have to check out their earlier releases, too.

[READ: May 24, 2012] “Referential”

This story is like a kick to the stomach.  When you’re lying on the floor.  After you’ve thrown up.  And I mean that as very high praise indeed.

You know you’re in for trouble when the story opens: “For the third time in three years, they talked about what would be a suitable gift for her deranged son.”  We quickly learn that the woman’s son was fine until he was about twelve years old when he stopped brushing his teeth and began muttering to himself.  By then Pete had been dating the woman for about six years.

Pete and the woman had been coping with her son’s placement in the institution for over three years now.  There were so many rules they had to follow when visiting the boy–almost nothing could be brought in for fear of its being used as a weapon–even the homemade jam was taken because it was in glass.  Similarly, the woman has stopped wearing accessories, as a kind of solidarity–she would just have to remove them anyway.  She is now aging naturally and (she fears/admits) not very prettily.  An amazing slap in the face comes at the end of the first section with this amazing sentence:  “‘To me, you always look so beautiful,’ Pete no longer said.”  [Ouch!].

Pete has lost his job and is clearly unable to handle the strain of her son any longer (there’s a wonderfully painful scene where the boy asks Pete why he hasn’t come to visit lately). (more…)

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Joshua Ferris–“Mrs. Blue” (The Iowa Review, Vol 29, No 2, Fall 1999)

Posted in Canadian Music, Constellation Records, Efrim Manuel Menuck, Funny (strange), Godspeed You Black Emperor, Huh?, Joshua Ferris, Radiohead, Set at School, Sex, Short Story, Silver Mt. Zion, The Iowa Review, Unreliable narrator on May 23, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: EFRIM MANUEL MENUCK-Plays “High Gospel” [CST078] (2011).

Efrim Manuel Menuck was a co-founder of Godspeed Your Black Emperor and the main force behind A Silver Mt. Zion.  In some ways it seems odd that he would release a solo album, but I guess Silver Mt Zion is enough of a collective for him to want to do his own thing.  Efrim has been singing a lot more on Silver Mt Zion records, and I find his voice to walk a fine line between interesting and annoying–well, not so much annoying as inappropriate to the music he makes.  For this solo disc, though, there’s something different about the music that works well with his voice.  There’s eight songs on the disc.  Some of them are pretty much unlistenable, but others are really enjoyable.  The opener “our lady of parc extension and her munificent sorrows” is 7 minutes long and has the kind of epic feel of his previous bands, but there’s a lot more keyboard (making cool space sounds).  Meanwhile, “a 12-pt. program for keep on keepin’ on” is described as a “hauntingly processed field recordings and ominous tape-delayed sound-sculpture.”  That’s true for the first minute or so, but after that it’s mostly just an unpleasant cacophony…that lasts nine minutes!  And while it’s great that it was all done with analogue equipment, that doesn’t make it any more listenable.

“august four, year-of-our-lord blues” is a much more enjoyable instrumental, slow vibrated notes, a real western sound.  Efrim sings again on “heavy calls & hospital blues” and his angsty, hesitant voice works very well on this piano ballad.  “heaven’s engine is a dusty ol’ bellows ” is a 2 minute instrumental/introduction that sounds a lot like the guitar opening from Radiohead’s “Electioneering.” “kaddish for chesnutt” is a slow, mournful dirge.  It’s quite moving.  It’s 7 minutes long, and the length is saved by the second half where the chanted vocals bring the song back from the edge.

“chickadees’ roar pt. 2” is mostly feedback noises and squeaks.  It’s less unpleasant than other instrumentals, but it’s not something you’d seek out.  Although it does work as an introduction to the closer: “i am no longer a motherless child.”  After about 2 minutes of dissonant introduction, the group begins singing an uplifting ending hymn.

So this boils down to a self-indulgent solo project, with a few tracks that are among his best.  You can stream it here.

[READ: May 22, 2012] “Mrs Blue”

I really enjoyed Joshua Ferris’ first novel.  So I thought I’d see what else he had written. He has a number stories published but most of them are unavailable for free reading at this time.  Thanks to my JSTOR account I was able to read this one from The Iowa Review.

This was  pretty confusing story–and since its one of his first, I don’t really know what else to compare it to in his work.  There’s all kinds of disturbing images and as you delve more deeply into the story, the images turn more disturbing but in different ways.

It opens with a youngish boy being seduced by Mrs Blue, a teacher in his school.  He warns her about the dangers of unprotected sex and she says that she’s the one who convinced the PTA to hire the guy who gave the lecture, so she knows all about it.  He’s 13 and he keeps telling her he doesn’t want to (her locations of choice include under a railroad car and in a burned out building).  Each paragraph or so is set off by a star, indicating a new section.  So section 2 has the narrator and Gus (friend? brother?) go to the track where Mrs Blue runs laps. Gus walks his dog, Mr Yackley, while the narrator (whose name is Woodrow Williams) talk about Cole Porter and how she’s looking for a new “daddy.” (more…)

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