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Archive for the ‘Five Dials’ Category

Zadie Smith–3 book reviews (Harper’s, July 2011)

Posted in Biography, Book Reviews, Five Dials, Harper's, Marlene Zuk, Mela Hartwig, Memoirs, My Morning Jacket, Nature, Olivia Judson, Prince, Sex, Sigrid Nunez, Susan Sontag, Will Self, Zadie Smith on July 26, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MY MORNING JACKET–Z (2005).

I’ve enjoyed My Morning Jacket since I bought their live album Okonokos.  I’ve enjoyed all of their releases since, but I never listened to Z, the album that forms the basis of much of Okonokos. Finally, I saw it cheap and picked it up.

And I was really surprised.  The reason I hadn’t gotten it was because I figured I had all of the songs already in live format, so who needed the studio?  Well, it turns out that the studio versions are quite different from the live ones.  In fact, on my first listen, I didn’t really like the studio versions all that much.  After a few listens of course, I like them just fine, but they are indeed quite different.

There are three songs here that didn’t make the live record: “Into the Woods,” “Anytime” and “Knot Comes Loose.”  But the other seven songs appear (often in slightly longer form) on the live disc.  And the live disc is fuller, louder and more energetic than the studio.  That’s what a live album is supposed to sound like.

Z, on the other hand, sounds a bit more polished, more almost dancey–reflecting the kinds of sounds they would incorporate down the road (like on Circuital).  But Z isn’t quite as full-sounding.  Despite that, the songs are top-notch.  And Jim James’ voice is truly a thing to behold (check out that crazy high note at the end of “What a Wonderful Man”).

I hate to sound like I’m down on this disc, because indeed, I am not.  It’s a really fascinating mix of psychedelia and Prince-inspired keyboard rock (I’m not going as far as funk, but it’s certainly Prince-y.  There’s some folk tracks, there’s the amazing “Wordless Chorus” which has a kind of 70;s soft rock feel, which is followed by the Prince-titled “It Beats 4 U” which sounds nothing like Prince, but has a great subtle guitar intro.  “Gideon” doesn’t match any of the over the top epics of earlier records, but it sure feels close.  And “Off the Record” is a practically ska.  The album even has a near 8 minute closing track, the awesome “Dondante.”

All in all, Z is pretty great.  But I still like the live versions better.  That’s what happens when you listen to things out of order, I guess.  But when do live albums count for anything?

 [READ: July 11, 2011] 3 book reviews

According to Five Dials, Zadie Smith is an official member of Harper’s staff now (funny I found out about it from Five Dials, but they really do have tentacles in all aspects of my life).  Congratultions, Zadie.

I can’t imagine having to review two or three books a month (I know I review a lot here, but most of them are short stories).  Zadie plows through a lot of books for this column, but what is wonderful is that the diversity of what she reads is really pronounced.  Just witness this months’ books.

MELA HARTWIG-Am I a Redundant Human Being?
Zadie takes a great angle on this novel.  She (with the help of an online reviewer) compares the protagonist of this novel (written in the 1930s) with Carrie Bradshaw from Sex in the City.  Why?  Because both protagonists seem to live their lives in the male gaze.  And yet they both also continue on their merry way regardless of what the men say or do.  True, Hartwig’s novella has much more angst, but really, there is a similar attitude present.

I especially like Zadie’s argument that women writers have never really had they way to express the bragging rights that men have employed time immemorial “We can’t, as the saying goes, pull it out and slap it on the table.”  And as such, women have had to achieve their victories through more roundabout means.  I rather liked this analysis.  And, I think it makes for more interesting reading most of the time. (more…)

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Five Dials Number 14 (4 November 2010)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Books about writers, Craig Taylor, Death, Five Dials, Lauren Simkin Berke, Maureen Freely, Orhan Pamuk, The Head and the Heart on July 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE HEAD AND THE HEART-Sasquatch Music Festival, May 28, 2011 (2011).

This is the fourth live recording from The Head and the Heart that NPR offers.  Not bad for a band with only one album out.  This set finds the band even more confident and relaxed (despite their genuine excitement at playing the festival).  The band sounds fantastic and I’ve really grown to appreciate the female harmonies on most of the songs now (I’ve not always liked them on every song).

This set has two as yet unrecorded songs in it (one of them was listed as untitled).  There’s some banter between the band and the fans (the band is nothing if not jovial) including a great story about how someone in the band went to Sasquatch the year before and swore he wouldn’t remove his backstage pass wrist band until The Head and The Heart band played Sasquatch.  I like to imagine there was ceremonial wrist band cutting ceremony on stage, but that is lost in the audio version.  Of course the story would be better if it was two or three years later, but it’s still a pretty good one. [See the Five Dials review below for a similar story!]

I found the sound quality of the show to be less than perfect.  The sounds are a bit muddied.  I don’t blame the band.  The Sasquatch venue may be beautiful (so many performers comment on it, I’d love to see the view) but I suspect that maybe the audio was less than stellar.

Nonetheless, The Head and the Heart continue to amaze in a live setting.

[READ: July 3, 3011] Five Dials Number 14

If Five Dials 13, The Festival Issue, was a double live CD, jam-packed with photos and stories and all kinds of wonderment, Five Dials Number 14 is an EP.  Even though it contains only one item, it’s more than a single, because the item is long and a lot is packed into it.  And that ends my metaphor.

One of the fun things about Five Dials is that it can be whatever length it wants to be. Many magazines offer double issues, but they never offer tiny issues afterwards.  And sometimes it’s nice to have a short issue that you can enjoy leisurely, without having to sift through filler.

So this issue consists of exactly two items: Craig Taylor’s introduction and the nobel prize acceptance speech by Orhan Pamuk. (more…)

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Five Dials Number 12: The Utterly Broken Britain Issue (6 May 2010)

Posted in Advice, Africa, Alain de Botton, Alan Hollinghurst, Alan Wykes, Books about writers, Brenda Walker, Craig Taylor, Culture Shock, Dan Hancox, Death, Decadence, Essays, Fears, Five Dials, Guster, History, James Robertson, Jeremy Gavron, Nick Dewar, Paul Davis, Poetry, Political Humor, Sex, Simon Prosser, Sophia Augusta, Stephen Vizinczey, The Walrus on July 9, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: GUSTER-Easy Wonderful (2010).

This Guster album is confusing.  It’s rather short (compared to their other discs).  Combined with the (kind of flimsy) cardboard packaging, it feels almost like an EP.  It also seems to be kind of religious (although I don’t think it is)–like a themed EP.  And yet it isn’t off-putting or anything (a few mentions of Jesus is all, although that’s a lot more than usual).

But, like most of Guster’s releases, it’s super catchy kind of alternative jangly pop.  After one or two listens the songs are instantly recognizable.  There isn’t a bad song in the bunch.  However, they’re also mildly underwhelming compared to their previous releases.  The songs feel a bit more subtle, but really it seems like they might be just a little too smooth.  The dynamics aren’t quite as exciting as they have been.

Having said all that, the disc is still pretty great and I find myself humming a lot of these songs all day long.

[READ: June 18, 2011] Five Dials Number 12

Five Dials Number 12 has a theme explicitly stated on the cover.  The premise of the theme is that the Conservative Party of Britain had been claiming (in their TV ads and billboards) that Britain was broken.  This idea was relentlessly pushed across Britain.  And Five Dials wondered if people thought that that was true in general.  So they asked 42 citizens (no idea what kind of random sample it may have been, realistically) and they recorded the results.

The rest of the issue has some of the standard Five Dials material we’ve come to expect: essays and fiction, advice and lists.  The theme gives an interesting tone to the proceedings.

CRAIG TAYLOR-A Letter from the Editor: On Broken Britain and Nick Dewar
Taylor addresses much of what is said above.  David Cameron (I still can’t get used to him being Prime Minister, it’s still Gordon Brown in my head–I guess Cameron hasn’t done much yet) is the man who keeps trying to “mend our broken society.”  Even though (and statistics are similar in the U.S.):

They found that violent crime had almost halved since 1995, while crime generally fell by an extraordinary 45%. The figures for teenage pregnancies – a favourite of those talking about social decay – remain constant since Labour came to power in 1997; so too do those for teenage abortions.

The rest of the letter is devoted to the passing of Nick Dewar.  Dewar drew the illustrations for Five Dials Number One.  I really liked Dewar’s style, and his absurdist sensibilities.  Taylor says that Dewar’s color work was even better.  And I think he’s right. (more…)

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Five Dials Number 11 (2010)

Posted in Advice, Alain de Botton, All Songs Considered, Books about writers, Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, Cluster, Craig Taylor, Culture Shock, David Bowie, Death, Decadence, Essays, Excerpt, Five Dials, Food, Funny (ha ha), Harper's, Irish Writer, Jon Savage, Kate Bland, Lou Reed, Negativland, Neil Young, Nick Drake, Patti Smith, Paul Murray, Pavement, Primus, Raymond Chandler, Roberto Bolaño, Sand, Steely Dan, Suicide, The Bay City Rollers, The Pogues, The Residents, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg on July 2, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE RESIDENTS-Meet the Residents plus Santa Dog EP (1973/1972).

Like a proto- Negativland meets Primus, The Residents took the world by storm in 1973.  Their debut album (pictured here) bore the unmistakable tagline: The First Album by North Louisiana’s Phenomenal Pop Combo.  And so it is.

Read more about the album in the Jon Savage essay below.

“Boots” is a sampled and remashed version of “These Boots Are Made for Walking.”  “Gylum Bardot” sounds like a Primus demo.  “Breath and Length” is noise and noise and effects and a soothing female vocal singing the title.   “Consuelo’s Departure” is a noisy soundtrack to nothing and “Smelly Tongues” sounds like a hammered dulcimer with a menacing bassline behind it until the vocals come in: “Smelly tongues looked just as they felt”.   And all 6 of these songs last less than ten minutes total.

“Rest Aria” changes tempo of things.  It’s five minutes long.  It starts as a simple piano track (slightly out of tune) but it slowly adds crazy horns and what sounds like children’s instruments.  The other longish song, “Spotted Pinto Beans” comes with a kind of faux chorus (female and then male) singing a kind of call and response which is overtaken by noise.

The one-minute “Skratz” comes between these two longer songs and is mostly  mumbling spoken vocal.  “Infant Tango” sounds like a normal song.  It opens with a funky wah wahed guitar.  Of course, the skronking horns and mumbled bass vocals tell you this is not going to be a hit.  It runs 6 minutes long with a strange little “guitar solo” in the middle.

“Seasoned Greetings” (with it’s weird holiday wishes at the end) segues into the 9 minute “N-Er-Gee (Crisis Blues”).  “N-Er-Gee” is a piano “melody” which is really someone banging the same notes very hard on the piano.  The voice on both tracks sounds like the aural equivalent of blackface until the sample (a very long sample that apparently voided placement on some releases) of “Nobody But You” morphs into a manipulated sampling of the word “boogaloo” and eventually becomes a dissonant chant of the title.

The appended Santa Dog is a bit more song-like.  Totally weird songs yes, but there’s actual melodies and lyrics.  Like on “Fire”: “Santa dog’s a Jesus fetus.”  “Aircraft Damage” is mostly a bunch of people reciting bizarre lyrics over each other.  The whole EP was about 12 minutes.  It’s weird but more palatable than the LP.

Despite how much this album foreshadowed loony alternative bands in the future, there is a clear predecessor in Trout Mask Replica.  Although Captain Beefheart followed a (relatively) more conventional song structure, you can hear elements of the Beefheart within.  This album is also notable for being made in the early 70s when the technology to do this easily was very far away.  You could whip this album up in a few minutes now, but back then with splice and paste, it would take ages.

It did not sell as well as the similarly titled Meet the Beatles.

[READ: June 16, 2011] Five Dials Number 11

Five Dials Number 10 was a special issue, but Number 11 goes back to the format we know.  It sort of has a theme about lists.   It contains half a dozen short essays and one long short story by Paul Murray (author of Skippy Dies).  This issue is also something of a surprise as it weighs in at a fairly small 16 pages (sometimes smaller is perfectly fine).  The issue also raised a couple of totally weird coincidences which I will point out as they come up.

CRAIG TAYLOR-A Letter from the Editor: On Wilton’s and Lists
Number 10 was designed to be ready for an evening at Wilton’s Music Hall on February 26th.  But the real theme of the issue is lists.  In part this is inspired by the Raymond Chandler entry, it’s also inspired because Taylor keeps lists around the office.  At the end of the letter he provides a list of all of the notes he’d left to himself in the office.  Some are about the issue (Paul Murray manuscript), other are seemingly more random (USA 5 Canada 3, men’s Olympic ice hockey result;  Canada 7-Russia 3, men’s Olympic ice hockey result; ‘Range Life’–Pavement).  And the one that is most coincidental to me–(The Umbrellas of Cherbourg–Jacques Demy).  This is coincidental because on the day that I read this, my friend Lar wrote a post about this very movie, which was completely unknown to me. (more…)

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Five Dials: Your Valentine’s Day Card (12 February 2010)

Posted in 35 rhums, Claire Denis, Constellation Records, Five Dials, Joe Dunthorne, L'intrus, Nénette et Boni, Romance, Sophia Augusta, Tindersticks, Trouble Every Day, Vendredi Soir, White Material on June 26, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: TINDERSTICKS-Claire Denis Film Scores 1996-2009 [CST077] (2011).

Constellation Records just released a 5 disc box set of Tindersticks movie scores.  Fans of the band will know the soundtracks for Nenette et Boni and Trouble Every Day which were released years ago.  Those are included here, along with four other soundtracks (on 3 discs).  The entire set includes Nenette et Boni (1996) White Material (2009), 35 rhum (2008), Trouble Every Day (2001) and two solo soundtracks: Stuart Staples’ score for L’intrus (2004) and Dickon Hinchliffe’s score for Vendredi Soir (2002).

As with most Constellation releases, this one is packaged beautifully.  The box is lovely with an opening for the top cover to show though. Each disc gets a cardboard sleeve with a cool still from the film.  And the booklet that accompanies the set is bilingual with lots and lots of still from the films and a cool interview with Denis and members of the band.

I have never seen any of Denis’ films.  So I was confused that some of these scores were only half an hour.  I thought maybe they were short films.  But indeed they are not.  35 Shots of Rum is 100 minutes for instance, even if the soundtrack is a third of that.

I’m going to review each score shortly, but since I’ve already discussed Nenette et Boni and Trouble Every Day, I’ll just put links to them.  In the meantime, the scores are really beautiful and moving.  Tindersticks are a very cinematic band to begin with, so it’s no surprise that they would make good soundtracks.

And the booklet is really interesting, showing how the band was introudced to Denis in the first place.  She loved the music of ‘My Sister’ and asked if she could use it for a film.  They said, well, maybe we can make a soundtrack for you instead.  And they began working together.  The combination proved so successful that they have scored virtually all of her movies since.  I really must get around to watching them some day.

In the meantime, I can just imagine what they are like from the music.

Here’s the opening credits for Trouble Every Day

[READ: June 24, 2011] Five Dials: Your Valentine’s Day Card

This Five Dials special issue doesn’t appear on the Five Dials home page.  I only found it while reading their news feed.  It’s not an issue per se.  Indeed, all that this valentine’s card is is one poem from Joe Dunthorne, and a cool cover illustration from Sophia Augusta. (more…)

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Five Dials Number 10: Celebrating the Life and Work of David Foster Wallace: 1962-2008 (9 December 2010)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Books about writers, David Foster Wallace, Death, Don DeLillo, Five Dials, George Saunders, Gogol Bordello, GQ, Harper's, Jonathan Franzen, Religion, Suicide, Zadie Smith on June 25, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: GOGOL BORDELLO-East Infection (EP Extra) (2005).

I learned about Gogol Bordello from some live shows available on NPR.  I enjoyed their sets so much I decided to check out their albums as well.  And I love them.  The albums are full of frenetic energy (they give Sarah agita, she says).  But everything that I love about fun, spirited, gypsy music is present here.

The band is essentially a band of gypsies, headed by wonderfully-mustachioed Eugene Hutz.  And their live show (as demonstrated by the included video) is a wild circus of fun (curtains and dancers and fire buckets and bowling pins and musicians jumping out of boxes), it’s like a wild party.  The video is for “Never Young Again” which would appear in full on their next album. It’s a fun song that reverses the age-old lament of wanting to be young again.  But mostly you watch this for the live footage.

This EP is probably not the best place to start as an introduction to Gogol Bordello (but it was really cheap so I bought it first).  Although it does offer many of the different aspects of Gogol’s music.  The EP features 6 songs and the video.  The songs are intense, hyper, crazy and wonderful.  “East Infection” opens with some nonsense lyrics (“Lee lee lee lee lee, la la la la la”) and morphs into what may be more nonsense, although there’s actual lyrics here.  “Ave B.” (which is also on their following album Gypsy Punks) is a more acoustic-based song, but it still has loud parts to it.

“Mala Vida” is a cover of a song by Manu Chao.  This version is a super fast punky track sung in Spanish (despite Eugene Hutz’ origins in the Ukraine, he has lived in Brazil for years and sings many songs in Spanish).  The original is very similar in temperament, although GB version is a bit more frenetic.

“Copycat” is the odd track on the disc, it’s a kind of dub track with big fat bass and a very slinky sound.  It and “Mala” were produced by Steve Albini.

“Strange Uncles from Abroad” is to me a very typical GB song: lots of violin, lots of dah dah dahs and a great melody.  It has a total gypsy feel, and goes through some loud and quiet moments.   The final track, “Madagascar-Roumania (Tu jésty fáta)” is the longest track by far (6 minutes).  It sounds like a demo and lacks the punch of the rest of the disc, but it showcases the softer side of the band (and yes there is one).

So, maybe this EP is a good place to start after all.  It’s certainly not throwaway material.  And the EP cover alone is pretty outstanding.

[READ: June 14, 2011] Five Dials Number 10

This is the issue of Five Dials that introduced me to the publication.  It is a special issue devoted to the memory of David Foster Wallace.  The entire issue is comprised of the eulogies given at the DFW memorial.  [The details are a little sketchy here…I’m not sure if these are all of the eulogies or just the eulogies from well known people.  I’m not even sure who would have been in the audience for this memorial.  The notes say “These tributes were given on 23 October, 2008 at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, New York University” and yet the Jonathan Franzen entry says “here at Pomona.”  So… details are sketchy].  Nevertheless, the tributes are heartfelt, informative and very moving.

Of course, I’m not going to ‘critique’ them, I’ll just try to summarize them.  But really, they’re all worth reading if you’re a fan. (more…)

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2011 Fiction Issues (The Walrus, July/August 2011 & New Yorker, June 13 & 20, 2011)

Posted in Aleksandar Hemon, Alexi Zentner, Alexisonfire, All Songs Considered, Canadian Content, City and Colour, Damian Rogers, Death, Edward P. Jones, Fishing, Five Dials, Food, George Saunders, Jeffrey Eugenides, Jennifer Egan, Jhumpa Lahiri, Junot Díaz, Kathleen Winter, Lauren Groff, Marriage Trouble, Michael Lista, New Yorker, Nostalgia, Poetry, Salvatore Scibona, Summer, Téa Obreht, The Walrus, Vladimir Nabokov on June 19, 2011| 3 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: CITY AND COLOUR Live at the Sasquatch Festival, May 29, 2011 (2011).

City and Colour have a new album coming out soon.  So it’s kind of surprising that this seven-song show is three songs from their previous album, two from their first album, a cover, and only one new track (“Fragile Bird”).

This is the first time I’ve heard City and Colour live with a band (most of the recordings I have by them are just Dallas Green solo).  It’s nice to hear how powerfully they work together (giving some of those songs an extra push).

Despite the brevity of the set (and the amusing banter about airport etiquette) you get a pretty good sense of what the “pretty-voiced guy” from Alexisonfire can do on his own.   I found the cover, Low’s “Murderer,” to be a really perfect choice–one that suits the band and their slightly-off harmonies, rather well.

I’m looking forward to their new release–“Fragile Bird” is another beautiful song.  But in the meantime, this is a good place to hear what they’ve been up to.

[READ: early June 2011] 2011 Fiction Issues

Five Dials seems to always generate coincidences with what I read. Right after reading the “”Summer’ Fiction” issue from Five Dials, I received the Fiction Issue from the New Yorker.  A few days later, I received the Summer Reading Issue from The Walrus.

I’m doing a separate post here because, although I am going to post about the specific fictions, I wanted to mention the poetry that comes in The Walrus’ issue.  I have no plan to write separate posts about poetry (I can barely write a full sentence about most poetry) so I’ll mention them in this post.

The main reason I’m drawing attention to these poems at all is because of the set-up of The Walrus’ Summer Fiction issue.  As the intro states: “We asked five celebrated writers to devise five guidelines for composing a short story or poem. They all traded lists–and played by the rules.”  I am so very intrigued at this idea of artificial rules imposed by an outsider.  So much so that I feel that it would be somewhat easier to write a story having these strictures put on you.  Although I imagine it would be harder to write a poem.

The two poets are Michael Lista and Damian Rogers.  I wasn’t blown away by either poem, but then I don’t love a lot of poetry.  So I’m going to mention the rules they had to follow. (more…)

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Five Dials Number 9: The Fiction Issue (2009)

Posted in Advice, Alain de Botton, Alice Hoffman, Anna Kelly, B.S. Johnson, Bao Ninh, Books about writers, Chloe Aridjis, Craig Taylor, Daniel Kehlmann, David Shields, David Vann, Death, Essays, Fears, Five Dials, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Harper's, Helen Oyeyemi, James Kelman, Language, Letters, Marriage Trouble, Philip Langeskov, Philip Roth, Poetry, Rainer Maria Rilke, Shane Jones, Short Story, Simon Prosser, Summer, Teenage Fanclub, Translation, William S. Burroughs on June 18, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: TEENAGE FANCLUB-Shadows (2010).

Back in the 90s, Teenage Fanclub released a few noisy, feedbacky records that were quintessential 90s alt rock.

Since then they have mellowed considerably, and this album is one of their most mellow to date. Usually for me this kind of mellowing is a sign that I’m done with a band; however, Teenage Fanclub’s songwriting gets better with every disc.  And these folky tracks are all fantastic.

What’s neat about the arrangement of the album is that each of the three members of the band writes four songs.  They are collated so that you cycle through each singer before repeating. You get maximum diversity–and it’s easy to tell which songwriter is your favorite.

The opening two songs, “Sometimes I Don’t Need to Believe in Anything” and “Baby Lee” are two wonderful upbeat pop confections.  They sound very different and yet both are infused with wonderful pop chops.

It seems that Blake is my favorite songwriter on this disc. He did “Baby Lee”, “Dark Clouds” (a pretty piano based number) and by far the prettiest song on the disc “When I Still Have Thee.”  It’s an amazingly catchy folk song that sounds timeless (and even has the great couplet: “The Rolling Stones wrote a song for me/It’s a minor song in a major key.”

That’s not to dismiss the other songwriters at all.  In fact, hearing their different takes on pop music is really pretty amazing.  It’s a shame that it takes them so long to put albums out (about 5 years these days).

[READ: June 10, 2011] Five Dials Number 9

Five Dials Number 8, The Paris Issue, was pretty big (45 pages), but it had a lot of pictures.  Five Dials Number 9 is also pretty big (41 pages) and it’s (almost) all text.  For this is the Fiction Issue, and there are a lot of short stories in here.

CRAIG TAYLOR-A Letter from the Editor: On ‘Summer Reading’ and Fiction Issues.
Since most of what I talk about in the introduction to these posts is covered in Taylor’s Letter from the Editor, I figured I’d switch formats and start talking about his letter right away.  In this letter, Taylor talks about the serious pitfalls of  ‘Summer Reading’: We pledge to read mammoth books over the summer, but really we never finish War and Peace over the summer, do we? (except those of us who finished Infinite Summer, am I right?).  And so, this Fiction Issue was released in December (finally, a date is given to a Five Dials!).  Taylor briefly talks about all of the authors who contributed (including a pat on the back to Five Dials for securing the rights to a Philip Roth contribution in its first year of publication).  He also talks about the essay from David Shields that is decidedly anti-fiction.   And the final note is that Taylor’s own father has a piece in this issue (nepotism is alive and well!) (more…)

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Five Dials Number 8 bis (3 December 2009)

Posted in Art, Books about writers, Five Dials, Guy de Maupassant, Marielle Durand, Mogwai, Sex, Short Story, Siân Miles, Translation, Travel on June 12, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MOGWAI-EP +2 (1999).

There’s a fascinating release history behind this EP (which mostly means fans wind up with three copies of “Stanley Kubrick.”  First it came out as EP with 4 tracks (which I ordered on import).  Then it was released in the US as EP+2 with two songs from the Fuck the Curfew EP (which was not released in the US) and finally in 2000 it was reissued again as EP+6 with ten songs in total (compiling 1997’s 4 Satin, 1998’s No Education = No Future (Fuck the Curfew), and 1999’s EP–I didn’t buy this version because by then I had the original imports).

“Stanley Kubrick” is a slow burner with a great repeated mournful guitar.   It’s one of their best songs. “Christmas Song” is a slow, upbeat track with a very pretty melody.  “Burn Girl Prom Queen” opens with some really quiet guitar.  After about 90 seconds, a brass band kicks in adding amazing horns over the simple guitar melody.  It’s my favorite track on the disc.  “Rage: Man” is the first song on the album where Mogawai’s noise tendencies really come to the fore.  Once again, it’s a simple slow melody (with piano).  About two minutes in, the song is bombarded with noise guitars that take over the song but don’t obscure the melody.  There’s also a noisy guitar solo played over the noise.  Soon enough all the noise ends, and the simple, harmonic’d guitar comes back and the song ends peacefully.  It’s a great example of Mogwai dynamics.

The other two tracks, “Rollerball” and “Small Children in the Background” come from the other EP as I mentioned.  It’s odd to squeeze in songs from a different release, but Mogwai don’t sound terribly different on these early EPs, so these songs work well together.

Despite their length, Mogwai EPs are pretty uniformly wonderful.

[READ: June 1, 2011] Five Dials Number 8 bis

After publishing Five Dials Number 8, they quickly rushed out this addendum to the issue, which they’ve called Five Dials 8 bis.  According to the introduction: “The definition of ‘bis’ is a passage to be repeated, so here is a small bis for our eighth issue.”

It’s only 9 pages long and really only contains one long piece.  Primarily, this is a memento of their Paris-issue release party, which they held in Paris (duh).  The opening pages includes scans of postcards (“One of our volunteers waded into conversations and asked attendees to write down their own thoughts on Paris. We’ve reprinted five of our favourites.”)  The editor’s letter, which explains all about the party and this issue, is not credited to anyone, so I can’t so who is responsible.  [This lack of proper crediting is the one major flaw with this publication–just saying illustrations by, and then not saying which is whose, or not including the date of publication is maddening].

The big article is by Guy de Maupassant (translated by Siân Miles). (more…)

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Five Dials Number 8 (1 October 2009)

Posted in Albert Camus, Ali Smith, Audioslave, Books about writers, Coco Chanel, Craig Taylor, Culture Shock, Essays, Five Dials, Funny (strange), Geoff Dyer, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Joanna Walsh, Joe Dunthorne, John Updike, Lauren Elkin, Leanne Shapton, Mark Ovenden, Oulipo, Paul Davis, Postmoderism, Rage Against the Machine, Short Story, Soundgarden, Steve Toltz, Susan Sontag, Tor Freeman, Truman Capote on June 11, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: AUDIOSLAVE-Audioslave (2002).

Despite the pedigree of this band: Rage Against the Machine + Chris Cornell, I wasn’t all that interested in the band when they came out.  I was over Rage and was bored by Cornell’s solo stuff.  But then recently, someone donated a copy of this album to th elibrary, so I thought I’d see what all of the fuss was about (nine years ago).

There are times when this album is really superb.  The Rage guys get an amazingly full sound out of their instruments (the choruses of “Show Me How to Live” are so full).  And when it works, and Cornell’s amazing voice is in full force, this seems like a genius pairing.

But there’s a lot that feels kind of clunky here (and there’s some really bad choices of guitar solo work by Tom Morello–the weird noises that compriose he solo of “What You Are”–in Rage the noises were weird but exciting and inflammatory, these are just kind of dull.  Worse yet, is the, well, stupid solo in “Like a Stone”–boring and ponderous at the same time).  Although he redeems himself somewhat with the cool solo on the otherwise dull “Intuition”.

The biggest surpise comes in “Like a Stone” which is insanely catchy and mellow–something one assumed Rage didn’t know how to do).  Lyrically the song is pretty stupid (as are most of the songs), but the combination of melody and Cornell’s great vocal lines really raise this song high–shame about the solo).  Also, a song like “Shadow of the Sun” seems to highlight Cornell’s more mellow moments (and shows that the Rage guys can actually play that slow), and they all seem to be in synch.

And there are several songs that rock really hard, sounding at times like Rage and at time like Soundgarden, but working on all cylinders together.  “Cochise” and “Set It Off” are simply great riff rock songs.

But ten or so years later, and twenty years since Badmotorfinger (my favorite Soundgarden album), it’s nice to hear Cornell rocking again.  Although man, the record is too long!

[READ: June 1, 2011] Five Dials Number 8

For Issue Number 8, Five Dials went to Paris.  And so the whole issue is given over to French concerns and ideas.  For a magazine that didn’t need a change of pace, it’s a delightful change of pace.  The feel of the magazine is different, and there’s an air of vacation about it (which is not to suggest that it is slacking off in any way), and it feels really vibrant.

I don’t know a lot about France in general.  I mean, I’ve been there, and I keep up with things, but I am not a Francophile by any means. So a lot of this stuff was simply new to me, which is always fun.  What I especially liked about the issue was that they were not afraid to show some of France’s uglier sides as well–it’s not just a tourism booster.

It even starts out differently than the other issues. (more…)

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