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Archive for the ‘Huh?’ Category

Wolf Wondratschek–“After Midnight” (Harper’s, September 2020)

Posted in Books about music, Excerpt, Harper's, Huh?, Humiliation, Marshall Yarbrough, Milly, Musicians, Wolf Wondratschek on October 12, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MILLY-“Star Thistle Blossom” (2020).

I saw Milly open for Swervedriver last year. I really enjoyed their angular shoegaze style.  At the time, milly only had one EP out. They are about ready to release a new one, and this is the first song from it.  You can check it out on their bandcamp page).

As I listened to it, i thought it sounded familiar.  And that’s because they played it when I saw them.  I really liked it a lot–the juxtaposition of pretty picked notes and alternating rocking angular chords, was really great.  Brendan Dyer’s vocals work perfectly in the shoegaze style and the backing harmonies are spot on.

I love at the two minute mark how most of the song drops out but for drums and guitar punctuated by a few power chords every few seconds.  The instrumental ending is perfect–grungey chords in a catchy melody and an abrupt ending.  I’m really looking forward to the rest of the EP.

[READ: October 2, 2020] “After Midnight”

This was a puzzling excerpt from Wondratschek’s novel Self-Portrait with Russian Piano (translated by Marshall Yarbrough).

The narrator is addressing you, the person who asked him is he continues to play his piano.

But his hands are bored and his heart is worn out (to say nothing of his legs).

He explains that he found a holy silence when he began to love music–not that he could ever understand music.

Maybe he always wanted to play for angels–to make them appear in his apartment. Maybe a holy calling would justify his playing an instrument since no one else in his family did–nor did they think much of it.

That far away from Moscow, artists were a figment of the imagination.  The horse that drew the plow was not, neither was poverty, nor the ground in which so little grew.

He has few visitors, except for a young violinist.  Her father was a friend of the piano player and she has has a lot of success.  They discuss music and he offers advice.  She compliments him and says no one plays like he does.  She wishes to play with him.

He can’t help but wonder, doesn’t she smell the scent of failure on him in his old age?

He is tried and cannot abide her for long.

He can no longer stay up until the right time to make music.

Well before midnight I’m finished as a human being and fall into bed.  At what woul dbe the right time for making music, I’m snoring…But who would dare take the risk of allowing a concert to begin after midnight?  Even with free admission it wouldn’t work.

This story could also go in many directions once this scene is over.

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Pablo Capanna–“Acronia” (1968) [Projections Box] (2020)

Posted in Andrea L. Bell, Bible, Black Lives Matter, Coronavirus, donald tRUMP, Dreams, Dystopia, Hingston & Olsen, Huh?, Humiliation, Joe Satriani, Kim Jong-un, Nuclear Power Trio, Oneiromancy, Politicians, Projections Box, Quarantine, Rebecca Romney, Sci-fi, Science, Sexism, The Future, The Good Ones, Vladimir Putin, Work on October 2, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: NUCLEAR POWER TRIO-“A Clear and Present Rager” (2020).

Today was one of the best days America has seen in four years.

Because here’s an EP to rock your politics off.*

Nuclear Power Trio is a band made up of Vladimir Putin on bass, Kim Jong-un on drums and Donald Trump on guitar.  And they totally rock. This first song from their new album is an absolutely rager, as the title says. It’s a three and a half minute instrumental that starts off with a monster riff and some really hightech fretwork from Putin on the bass.  When the main “verse” comes in, Trump shows his amazing dexterity on the eight string guitar.  He plays surprisingly tasteful licks in between the shredding. This is some pretty classic rocking instrumental stuff ala Joe Satriani, but with the whole band totally keyed in.

A big surprise comes a minute and 45 seconds in when an unnamed fourth member (in the video he appears as a secret service agent) plays an gentle acoustic guitar break, allowing Trump to do some gentle volume-controlled notes. This quiet section happens twice and after the second one, Putin just goes mental on the bass while Kim Jong-Un shows what impressive double bass capabilities he has.

The video for this song is rather disturbing.

But I gotta say, I’d much rather have these three nutcases in a kick ass band than in charge of any country.

[READ: September 24, 2020] The Space Merchants [an excerpt]

During the COVID Quarantine, venerable publisher Hingston & Olsen created, under the editorship of Rebecca Romney, a gorgeous box of 12 stories.  It has a die-cut opening to allow the top book’s central image to show through (each book’s center is different).  You can get a copy here. This is a collection of science fiction stories written from 1836 to 1998.  Each story imagines the future–some further into the future than others. As it says on the back of the box

Their future.  Our present.  From social reforms to climate change, video chat to the new face of fascism, Projections is a collection of 12 sci-fi stories that anticipated life in the present day.

About this story, which was translated by Andrea L. Bell, Romney writes

the wonders of robot-controlled automation allow people to live in ease within the perfect mechanism of a programmed city–but in the end lead to ineffable discord within the mind of the protagonist.

This story was a little hard for me to wrap my head around.  The story follows P. as he makes his way through his daily life in Arconia.

P. is an evaluator.  But P. was distracted.  Not only did he not mind having evaded his work, he felt euphoric about it. This was not normal. (more…)

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Mary Griffith–Three Hundred Years Hence [excerpt] (1898) [Projections Box] (2020)

Posted in Boston, MA, Conway The Machine, Coronavirus, Death, Dogs, Griselda, Hingston & Olsen, Horses, Huh?, lil' Sweet Chick, Mary Griffith, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA, Politicians, Projections Box, Quarantine, Rebecca Romney, Sci-fi, Sexism, The Future, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert on September 25, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: CONWAY THE MACHINE-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #84 (September 23, 2020).

Several musicians have tinkered with the “home” component of the Tiny Desk Home Concert.

Conway the Machine’s “home” is in the Queens, NY restaurant lil’ Sweet Chick, where he performs five songs, and has a fine looking plate of chicken and waffles.

Conway the Machine is part of Griselda, a Queens-based rap trio.  I watched Benny the Butcher’s Tiny Desk recently and rather enjoyed it. Conway’s songs seem grittier and darker (especially when you learn the origins of “Front Lines.”

He opens with “Lemon” (prod. by Daringer & Beat Butcha) as a waitress brings him a drink (a lemon squeeze?).  The music is dark and grimy and it works very well with his voice.

Up next is “Front Lines” (prod. by Beat Butcha) which was inspired by the George Floyd incident–he wanted to record a perspective from the upset angry protestors.  It speaks directly to the racial profiling committed by cops while policing Black communities with this outstanding verse:

I just seen a video on the news I couldn’t believe (nah)
Another racist cop kill a nigga and get to leave (again?)
He screamin’, “I can’t breathe”, cop ignorin’ all his pleas
Hands in his pocket, leanin’ on his neck with his knees (psh)
Cracker invent the laws, that’s why the system is flawed
Cops killin’ black people on camera and don’t get charged
We ain’t takin’ no more, we ain’t just pressin’ record
Can’t watch you kill my brother, you gon’ have to kill us all
Just ’cause he from the ghetto, that don’t mean he sellin’ crack
He drivin’ home from work, you pull him over ’cause he black
Think he gangbangin’ ’cause he got dreads and a few tats
He reach for his ID, you think he reachin’ for a strap
He get out, put his hands up, and he still gettin’ clapped
But if he try to run, you just gon’ shoot him in his back
What if it was my son? I wonder how I’m gon’ react
I bet I’m finna run up in this precinct with this MAC (brr)
I swear to God

“OverDose” (prod. by The Alchemist) has what sounds like a zither as the main discordant musical tone.  I like the way the bass is slow and his rapping is really fast.

Then comes “The Cow” (prod. by Daringer)  “The Cow” is, as he says in the intro, “one of [the] most personal and transparent records I ever wrote,” in which he speaks about losing one of his best friends and getting shot in the head and neck. The injuries led to permanent facial paralysis.  The song has brought Conway to tears in the past, and the memories clearly get to him again here.

Last is “Anza” (prod. by Murda Beatz) which is a pretty traditional bragging rap, with maybe a touch more aggression than other.

As the set ends, he thanks lil’ Sweet Chick for the ambiance: “I’m about to get into this chicken right here … tastes like it was made with a mother’s care.”

[READ: September 23, 2020] Three Hundred Years Hence (excerpt)

During the COVID Quarantine, venerable publisher Hingston & Olsen created, under the editorship of Rebecca Romney, a gorgeous box of 12 stories.  It has a die-cut opening to allow the top book’s central image to show through (each book’s center is different).  You can get a copy here.

This is a collection of science fiction stories written from 1836 to 1998.  Each story imagines the future–some further into the future than others.

As it says on the back of the box

Their future.  Our present.  From social reforms to climate change, video chat to the new face of fascism, Projections is a collection of 12 sci-fi stories that anticipated life in the present day.

This first story is by Mary Griffith.  Written in 1836, it looks, literally, three hundred years into the future.  Romney writes:

It is the story of a man who gets caught in an avalanche of ice in 1835 and wakes up in 2135.  It’s often cited as the earliest utopia written by an American woman.  The author imagined a future in which society’s advancements increase dramatically due to one major structural shift: supporting women in science.  Born in 1772, Griffith herself was one of the nascent United States’ earliest practicing women scientists, with special contribution in geology.

The ice man, Hastings, is given a tour of the country–New York, Boston and Philadelphia–by a man named Edgar.   Edgar updates him and tells him about al of the changes that have taken place.

The writing style of this tory isn’t all that interesting–it’s a little preachy and dry.  Since this is an excerpt I’m not sure if there’s a plot necessarily.  But in this excerpt it’s mostly just meandering around.    (more…)

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Sergio De La Pava–Personae (2011)

Posted in Arlo Parks, Coronavirus, Death, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Futility, Glenn Gould, Huh?, Humiliation, Jean-Paul Sartre, Johann Sebastian Bach, Play (Drama), Poetry, Quarantine, Science Faction, Sergio De La Pava, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert on September 15, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ARLO PARKS-Tiny Desk Concert #80 (September 15, 2020).

I had never heard of Arlo Parks before this set and then today Spotify recommended her album to me.  How about that.

Arlo Parks was born Anaïs Oluwatoyin Estelle Marinho in London.

She began writing poetry and songs because (according to her short bio) she spent her high school days “feeling like that Black kid in school who couldn’t dance for s***, listening to too much emo music and crushing on the girl in Spanish class.”

Accompanied by a guitar from her home in London, Parks opens with her latest single, “Hurt”, followed by the three songs that introduced her to the world and remind us that we really aren’t alone.

All of her songs sound similar in style–very gentle guitar and her soft, eloquent vocals.

“Hurt” is filled with nice details like

Charlie melts into his mattress
Watching Twin Peaks on his ones
Then his fingers find a bottle
When he starts to miss his mum

There’s a nice spoken word part–she has a lovely singing voice, but I enjoyed hearing her speaking voice as well.

It’s funny to hear a 19 year-old talk about introspection and reading through her “old journals.”  Especially since the next song, “Cola” is the first song she ever put out–way back in November 2018.

Playing “Cola” makes her reflect on the journey she;s had and what’s next to come.  It’s another pretty, gentle song with lots of specific details.

“Eugene” explores blurring the lines between romance and friendship.  It’s one of her favorite songs that she’s written.  It’s got a simple but really engaging guitar melody.

I had a dream we kissed
And it was all amethyst
The underpart of your eyes was violet
You hung a cigarette between your purple lips
We’ve been best buds since thirteen
I hold head back when you’re too lean
I hold the Taco Bell and you cried over Eugene

“Black Dog” is one of the most emotional songs she’s written.  It’s about mental health and has gotten a very string response from people.  Her voice is so tender, so delicate.  It’s quite lovely.

[READ: September 30, 2019] Personae

I really enjoyed De La Pava’s first and third books but somehow I missed this one, which is quite unlike the other two.  It is several hundred pages shorter and has far less of a narrative.  While the other books are chock full of details, this one feels like he was deliberately leaving things out.

Part 1 is called Our Heroine and begins with Detective Helen Tame.  She is the author of this report: “this Department is obsessed with reports and I am not; if I had to cop to any obsession it would be with the Truth.”

She is amusingly no nonsense.  When addressing a police officer on the case she says:

“You can go now,” I add, but he hesitates.  “That means leave in Etiquette.”

She is writing this report because she has found a dead body–a bloody dead body.  “He is more than century old; was.”  The victim an 111-year-old Colombian writer named Antonio Arce. (more…)

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John Berger–“Woven, Sir” (New Yorker, April 2, 2001)

Posted in Death, Hotels, Huh?, Humiliation, John Berger, New Yorker, Nostalgia, Short Story, The Flaming Lips on August 30, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE FLAMING LIPS-“Will You Return/When You Come Down” (2020).

As part of The Flaming Lips’ slow release of new songs from American Head, here comes this gentle song “Will You Return/Will You Come Down.”

Wayne sings his falsetto vocals over a gentle piano and bells melody.  He sings the title a few times before the verse begins.

The verses are very Flaming Lips–a friendly vocal melody about death.

About half way through, after the second chorus, the song takes off with soaring backing vocals and more instruments added.

A vocal line (Wayne’s voice sped up?) sings the “will you return” part a few times before a folky acoustic guitar comes in to take over the chorus.  The last minute or so goes full on Lips with strings, different vocal lines (screaming from beyond) and a wild guitar solo.

Although there’s not much to this song, there’s quite a lot going on.

[READ: August 21, 2020] “Woven, Sir”

After reading some bizarre and exciting stories, this one felt rather dull.

A man is in a hotel in Madrid waiting for a friend.  He looks around the hotel, makes observations about the other people there and then notices a man name Tyler.

There’s a number of interesting lines in the story which I liked.  Like when the narrator requests food from the waiter and Tyler, who is not facing him, says

I notice that, regrettably, you haven’t improved your pronunciation.  You are as lost in Spanish as you once were in English, he says…. You don’t listen to how other people talk.  You never say to yourself, He speaks well, so I’ll listen to him and learn how to speak.

Then we learn that the narrator knew Tyler (it’s his last name, first name unknown) many many years ago, when the narrator was six or seven.  Tyler was a tutor at a facility called the Green Hut.  (more…)

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Jim Crace–“Digestions” (New Yorker, May 7, 2001)

Posted in Cop Shoot Cop, Death, Drugs, Huh?, Jim Crace, Mushrooms, Mussels, New Yorker, Phil Puleo, Short Story, Swans, The Devil on August 29, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PHIL PULEO-Phil Puleo’s poly”WOG” 1996​-​2003 (2003/2020).

Phil Puleo has been the drummer for Swans for a number of years.  He has also been in Cop Shoot Cop and a number of other bands.  He also lived in New Jersey and was a good friend of a good friend of mine.  So I’ve hung out with him a few times and was pretty excited for him to get the gig with Swans.  I was really looking forward to seeing them this past winter, but theirs was one of the first shows to get postponed until next year.

So Phil has reissued (and remastered) some of his solo projects.

This one is described as

Highly effected samples of me playing various instruments. Guitar, Piano, Bass, Percussion, Electronic percussion, hammered dulcimer, harmonica, found audio recordings, weird answering machine messages etc.  Many of these tracks were recorded around the Swans are Dead tour in 1997 in my home in NJ.

So you get fourteen tracks of warped instrumental songs.  They sound like a soundtrack to a world that is slightly out of phase with ours.

“Italianato” is basically the music for “La Vie en Rose” performed on a a pipe organ that’s underwater.  But its ten minutes are filled with all kinds of samples that break through the surface.  By about four minutes the main melody has been stripped away to pulses of keyboards and samples of a woman saying “Are you too young to remember that?  You are.”  Along with a slowed voice saying “I’m a depressing motherfucker.” And that same earlier voice repeating “You are.”

“Can Somebody” opens with a somber piano that’s accompanied by swirling waves of high notes.  An answering machine plays through as if from another world. I’m really enamored of the simple melody that starts after the message, like a mechanical bird singing a robotic song.

“I” is a minute and a half of a slow echoing piano melody while “Ahoy” soars with a violin-like instrument fluttering around.  Until a more sinister noise comes from under the depths, surfacing again and again.

“Mother’s Plot” is based around percussive sounds.  There’s also distant voices processed to sound almost like chanting.  “Vio” messes around with some loosely tuned guitars and a harmonica, a kind of under the sea Western.  Although half way through the song grows a bit brighter with clean guitars strumming a pretty melody.  “Message” has a deep pulsing sound and delicate sprinkling of chimes and piano as a man leaves a message about burning the whole place to the ground and needing an alibi.  Yikes!

“Slow By” has some plucked almost Spanish guitar enveloped by more of that pulsing sound.  Once the percussion comes in the melody establishes itself to create a really interesting soundtrack.  “Overgrown” has a melody based around what sounds like a dulcimer.  There’s some interesting guitar sounds that come and go and a noise that sounds like a cow (but isn’t).  The rubbery sound quality in this song is really terrific.

“Hill 503” is an exploration of what constitutes percussion.  A steady drumbeat is accompanied by other sounds (including a violin bow banging strings) that grow and recede. By the end, an echoing guitar line re-introduces a kind of Western feel to the piece.

“Tumble” has some wooden percussion underpinning the sounds of children playing in the distance  It sets for a potentially bucolic scene.  Especially when combined with “Wog Maia,” a pretty guitar song with gently echoed piano and processed children’s voices.

“Indian Guy” has some gentle dulcimer in what sounds like an urban landscape. The “solo” sounds like it was manipulated by some proto-Auto-tune.  “All New Baby” has some more lovely hammered dulcimer playing over the top of some sinister backing chords.  The second half cycles through rising seven note patterns that provide some excellent tension.

“Everything” is the reissue’s bonus track.  It does sound like he’s crammed everything that’s gone before into 90 seconds.  Waves and waves of noises that resolve in a tidy little guitar piece.

This is not easy listening, but it is very evocative and visual.  I’d watch whatever movie this was a soundtrack to.

[READ: August 20, 2020] “Digestions”

I was surprised to learn that I had not read anything by Jim Crace before–his name sounded so familiar.

This piece is several very short stories about food.

“Mussels on the House” is the best one.  In it, the chef of The Yellow Basket likes to take revenge on unsatisfied customers by giving them less than good mussels.  The locals enjoy hearing the stories of the politician or the couple planing a divorce or the state executive whose evening did not end how they planned.

“George’s Magic Cookies” may have been given to a man on death row.  It certainly would have made the moments after his last meal happy ones.  George thinks that he might still be flying. (more…)

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Leigh Newman–“Nobody Gets Out Alive” (Harper’s, August 2020)

Posted in Alaska, Boris, Fragment, Harper's, Huh?, Humiliation, Japanese Music, Knives, Leigh Newman, Marriage Trouble, Parenting, Sex, Short Story, Unlikable main character on August 26, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BORIS-Archive Volume Five “Pink Days” (2014/2020). 

a0153819288_16In early August, Boris digitally released six archival releases.  Volume Five is called “Pink Days” and it is the best sounding of the bunch.

This show was recorded live in New York on May 31 during Boris’s 2006 US tour.  PINK had just been released and the band played 7 selections from the album.  But they also played two classics from Akuma No Uta and, one from Dronevil and a track from The Thing Which Solomon Overlooked (or Mabuta No Ura depending on which version of the song they play).

This show

 transmits wild enthusiasm; the songs in this full set recording could even be called their greatest hits.
(Originally released on March 5, 2014. Included in Archive 2, limited to 1,000 copies)

The set opens with four songs from Pink.  The first is “Blackout” which serves as a noisy introduction for what’s to come–feedback, squeals, waves of noise and Atsuo’s gong.  As the songs settles in around 7 minutes, Wata takes some soaring solos while Atsuo pounds away on the drums and Takeshi plays some super heavy bass lines.   Atsuo adds some vocals and a big YEAH! before the band starts “PINK,” with its fast, heavy riff and more soaring guitars.  Atsuo sings the melody as the song speeds along.  “Woman on the Screen” continues the fast heaviness with two and a half minutes of pummeling guitars and drums.  “Nothing Special” is two more minutes of blistering noise with lots and lots of YEAHs!

A quick jump to the Akuma No Uta album for the riff-tastic “Ibitsu” before returning to Pink for the two minute “Electric.”

Boris has two songs called “A Bao A Qu.”  Apparently they are entirely different.  I gather that this one is from the Mabuta No Ura album and not The Thing Which Solomon Overlooked (that version is over 8 minutes long and this one is about 4).  It’s heavy and dense with a lot of slow vocals and screaming solos.

Things finally slow down for the 15 minute “the evilone which sobs” from the Dronevil album.  This is a solid drone song–waves of low end feedback pulsing throughout the concert hall.  After four minutes of ringing, Wata plays a slow four note melody.  About half way through the song, a new melody enters–both Takeshi and Wata play different parts while Atsuo smashes the cymbals.   By nine minutes the two parts have more or less melded and the four note melody returns with the powerful backing of Takeshi.  The last five minutes show Wata whaling away on her guitar creating soaring textures and sounds.

The feedbacking end segues into the title track from Akuma no Uta.  This five minute instrumental features a lot of gong and a lot of cymbals as the slow riff unfolds. Until about half way through when the song takes off with a wicked riff and lot of whiooping from Atsuo.

For the last two songs the band returns to Pink.  Up first is the the ten minute “Just Abandoned My-Self” which is a simple, fast singalong (if only you could figure out the words).  The last five or so minutes lead the song into a droning outro–feeback and noise–that abruptly shuts off to wild applause and Atsuo telling everyone that there’s one more song.

The last song is the opening track from Pink called “Farewell.” It starts slowly with a pretty guitar riff.  It’s a really catchy song with a great melody.  Atsuo’s soaring vocals at the end are a nice capstone to a great show.

[READ: August 15, 2020] “Nobody Gets Out Alive”

I didn’t really like the way this story unfolded.  It started out intriguingly enough: “Getting past the mastodon took planning.”

The mastodon skull was in the middle of the room where a coffee table might normally be.  The setting is a house in Alaska, being used for a wedding party.

The newly married couple are Carter and Katrina.  They are in Alaska visiting Katrina’s father.  His neighbor Neil decided to host this wedding party for them.  Its apparent that he and Katrina used to date (or maybe wanted to) a long time ago.

They went to Alaska because Carter had never been there.  Nor had he met her father (in fact they’d only met each other a year ago). But Katrina’s father is very dull–he eats the same meal every night, he watches the same shows every night and he doesn’t even want to go to the wedding party. (more…)

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Lina Wolff–“The Report” (Harper’s, August 2020)

Posted in Boris, Drinking, Harper's, Huh?, Humiliation, Japanese Music, Lina Wolff, Marriage Trouble, Saskia Vogel, Sex, Short Story, Translation on August 16, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BORIS-Archive Volume Three “2 Long Songs” (2005/2020). 

In early August, Boris digitally released six archival releases.  Volume Three is called “2 Long Songs” and that’s what it contains.

There are two songs in this live recording, one is 15 minutes, the other is 22 and this whole recording is just fantastic.

Originally released in 2005 from the US label “aRCHIVE”, limited to 600 copies which sold out immediately. A precious live recording from their early days, of Boris’s 1996 debut single song release, “Absolutego”, and “flood”, released in 2000, performed live together as “1 song, 1 production”.
(Reissued as part of Archive 1 on March 5, 2014. Limited to 1,000 copies).

Like the other Archive releases, this one was also recorded at Koenji 20000V.  This time in 2001–so the band and the quality of the recording are much improved.

“Absolutego” is a sixty minute song released as one long track on Boris’ debut album.  So a 15 minute version is quite truncated.  This version has a slow three-note bass line that slowly adds feedbacking guitars and cymbals.   At two and a half minutes, the drums loudly pound in–like Atsuo is introducing himself to the set.  But five minutes, the full on washes of noise have taken over the song and a few minutes later, Atsuo starts scream/singing.  The song starts speeding up and by 12 minutes there’s lots of cymbal crashing as the song crescendoes into a conclusion of feedback and warped sounds.

“flood” is a 70 minute song (!).  It is their third album (which was recorded in four parts).  This song is much prettier and far less abrasive and here is only 22 minutes long.  It opens with a pretty, quiet melody.  It is slow and moody punctuated by cymbals and echoing noises.  At four minutes the vocals come in–quietly singing in harmony.  Then the drums come crashing in, building to waves of guitar noise and cymbals as the loud bass pushes the song along.  A break introduces a high three note riff as the singing continues.  Is that Wata singing?  By fifteen minutes, Atsuo is making judicious use of the gong–a great punctuating sound.  The last seven minutes are a conclusion as the song drones out to the end.

This is one of my favorite archival releases.  The band sounds great and they perfectly jam out these long songs.

Takeshi: Bass & Vocal ;  Wata: Guitar & Echo ; Atsuo: Drums & Vocal

[READ: August 15, 2020] “The Report”

This is a short story and I agree with the first sentence: “The report is bizarre.”

A woman has hired a man to bring information about her husband.  The man followed the woman’s husband who worked at an office in Barcelona.  But he spends a lot of his time in Madrid.  With another woman.  They meet every Thursday and Friday

The wife does not want to know the other woman’s name.

But the man tells her that the other woman is very ugly–her husband turns off the light as soon as he can because, “her face frightens him.”  He takes long showers after lovemaking.

Then the man stands up and says that there are solutions to problems like this–we know how to get rid of people.   But the wife is not interested. (more…)

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Clare Sestanovich–“Annunciation” (Harper’s, July 2020)

Posted in Abortion, Becca Mancari, Clare Sestanovich, College, Coronavirus, Harper's, Huh?, Joseph, Marriage Trouble, Paramore, Pregnancy, Quarantine, Sex, Short Story, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert on August 11, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BECCA MANCARI-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #62 (August 11, 2020)

I saw Becca Mancari open for Joseph a couple of years ago.  She really won us over with her diverse musical sound (even though it was just her and a pedal steel guitar player on stage).

This set, with a full band, sounds very different and even better.

At the show, she was funny and thoughtful.  That attitude continues now.

She postponed this concert when the Black Lives Matter protests began in May: “I wanted to be so careful of respecting an extremely important movement in our country both now and then. So, we decided to all wait, learn, grow, protest, and listen.”

She has a new album The Greatest Part from which these four songs are taken.

The band she has assembled is terrific.  Zac Farro on drums (he is also in Paramore) plays many terrific flourishes and fills.  Bassist Duncan Shea (this is filmed in his woodsy home studio) doesn’t show off, but adds some great accents and lines as needed.  Guitarist Juan Solorzano plays perfectly off of Mancari–whether it’s leads or just interesting sounds.

Mancari’s songs often seek to reveal the unspoken, and you can hear that process in the way Caleb Hickman’s inventive keyboard parts respond to Mancari’s voice and Juan Solorzano’s searching guitar lines. And keyboardist Caleb Hickman fleshes out the sound.

Several of these home concerts have featured a full band, but

It’s a joy, in this time of isolation, to see her band connect and build something beautiful, despite the masks. “The band and I have been in our own little Corona-pod, but we wanted to be extra safe,” Mancari says of the protective gear.

“Hunter” starts with quietly sung vocals and guitars. I love the way the drums kick in about a minute into the song with six slow, powerful thumps followed by Solorzano’s raw, rough guitars.  The surprising pitch shift into the catchy “whoo”-filled chorus really makes the song special.

Introducing “First Time,” she says, “I came out when I was pretty young and it went pretty badly.”  This slower song is written for people like her to feel included.  The song is simple, but once again, the band fleshes it out wonderfully.  I love the cool theremin-like sounds from Solorzano and the super catchy middle part with a guitar solo and fun bass lines that make the chorus sound even catchier.

“Bad Feeling” has a gentle echo on this more down-tempo song.  It has a nifty retro feel.  And so does “Like This” which opens with a slow thumping bass line and some wah wah guitars.  The synths sound like a flute and you could easily see a flute solo floating over the middle of the song.

She introduces the last song, “I’m Sorry,” by saying, “When I wrote this record it was about my own personal journey towards transforming from anger into forgiveness.  It’s about learning to say that you’re sorry to yourself and others around you.”  The song is slow as befits the title.   The middle of the song has surprisingly catchy chorus and a fun dah dah dah dah dah part.  As the song ends it really rocks out again with great drums from Farro.

I’m looking forward to seeing her again.

[READ: August 10, 2020] “Annunciation”

This story is about Iris and it seems to race through her life, focusing on a few moments of significance.

It starts with Iris on a plane.  Her seat mates are a married couple sitting on either side of her.  The wife likes the window, the husband liked the aisle, Iris in the middle.  But they are not fighting–when the woman comes back from the bathroom, she happily shows Iris and her husband a birth control strip–they are pregnant!

On the way home from the airport, Iris tells her mother about this and her mother is appalled. How could they say something so early?  That baby could still die (Iris believes that the baby has died from the way her mother says that).

Years later, when she is about to graduate from college, Iris is dating a virgin, Ben.  She can’t figure out why he is still a virgin–he’s not ugly or weird.  On the night before graduation, she changes that.

A few days later Iris’ friend Charlotte laughs at her: A one-night stand with a virgin and she gets pregnant.  The movie writes itself.  She doesn’t tell Ben.

Iris is staying at Charlotte’s house.  Charlotte’s parents paid for the abortion and she promises she’ll pay them back even though they say she doesn’t have to.

Iris finds a place to live–it’s a room in the apartment of a married couple.  A married couple who sleeps with another married couple.  Iris doesn’t ask anything about this arrangement but Charlotte wants to find out all that she can. So on New Years Eve, instead of going to Charlotte’s family’s house, Charlotte comes to Iris’ weird set up.  By the end of the night Charlotte has had sex with the married couples.

A few days later, Iris is walking down the street and she sees Ben in a restaurant.  He is with an old lady and seems just as surprised to see her as she is to see him,.

The old lady insists that Iris sit with them.

I’ve only read one other story by Sestanovich and I really liked the open ended nature of it.  It felt incomplete in an intriguing way.  This one felt incomplete in a frustrating way.  There was just too much left out and I didn’t really care about any of the characters.

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Kazuo Ishiguro–“A Village After Dark” (New Yorker, May 21, 2001)

Posted in Huh?, Kazuo Ishiguro, Mastodon, Regrets, Short Story on August 9, 2020| 3 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: MASTODON-“Fallen Torches” (2020).

Mastodon has a new collection of rarities and B-sides coming out soon.  I’m not sure if this single is a new song or an old one, but man is it good.

It features just about every aspect of Mastodon in one song.  There’s massive drums, heavy guitars, angry vocals, soaring clean vocals and many different parts.

The song opens with a heavy riff and vocals–a classic Mastodon sound.  After 45 second the guitars soar high and the second vocalist sings even higher, soaring the title before returning to the main verse riff.

A third part adds speed before a fourth part slows things down with a lot of sinister echo.  It’s a great breather that slowly rebuilds the song with some more great riffs and intense drums.  The end is suitably heavy.

I can’t wait to hear the rest of the record.

[READ: August 1, 2020] “A Village After Dark”

This story shows the aftermath of something we never learn the details about.

A man, Fletcher, returns to a village in England.  He used to live there many years ago, but he is now older and easily disoriented. He didn’t recognize anything in the village.

But he needed to rest, so he stopped at door at random and knocked very hard on it.

While he was knocking, a young woman called out to him.  She asked if he was “one of that lot with David Maggis and all of them.”  He says he was, but that Maggis was hardly the most important one.

He realizes that he and his friends were all before her time.  Nevertheless, she was excited he was there, saying that all of the people her age looked up to him.  She invited him to her cottage. (more…)

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