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Archive for the ‘Magazines’ Category

Jay Hosking–“Hackles” (The Walrus, April 2016)

Posted in Aristotle, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Constellation Records, Dogs, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Jay Hosking, Short Story, The Walrus, Violence, Yuck! on May 17, 2016| Leave a Comment »

walrusaprilSOUNDTRACK: GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR-‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! [CST081] (2012).

330px-Godspeed_You!_Black_Emperor_-_Allelujah!_Don't_Bend!_Ascend!After ten years, GY!BE came back with a new album.  It fits on one CD, but, just to be different, the band released the vinyl as one 12″ and one 7″ record.  The 12″ contains the two longer songs and the 7″ contains the two shorter ones.

“Mladic” (20 minutes) opens with sampled voices: “with his arms outstretched.”  Then comes a hurdy-gurdy and violins and droning sounds with incidental guitar notes.  This goes on for about 4 minutes before the drums and ringing chords slowly enter the song.  By about 6 and a half minutes, a buzzy guitar starts playing a feedback-squalling riff, while a second guitar follows along (in the other ear).  And by 7 and a half minutes, the drums begin and the song really takes off.  At around 9 minutes a new riff begins, slightly Middle Eastern sounding.  The whole band joins in, including some fierce drumming and the song gets bigger and bigger.  Then around 11 minutes, everything drops off except for bass and drums.  And that’s when the noisy chaotic guitar solos begin.  Things slow down, but don’t great less intense.   And then at 14 and a half minutes, everything pretty much drops out save a cello and feedback.  But that’s only a precursor to the big riff that follows.  Things slow down one more time, although it’s more of a quiet rumble with the drums going throughout.  And then they launch into the final cascade of music, saving the last 2 minutes for echoes, feedback and a rackety percussion section.  It’ fantastic.

“We Drift Like Worried Fire” (20 minutes) opens slowly with pizzicato violin notes and other sounds in the background.  A guitar riff starts at around 3 minutes which leads the song in a very different direction.  A slow violin plays over the top of the guitar riff.  The violin and drums grow more complex and at 6 minutes, the ringing guitar overtakes the rest of the music.  At around 8 minutes a series of ringing guitar “solos” enter the song. Combined with the percussive noise and the bass, it’s surprisingly catchy.  When everything drops out and there’s simply a violin playing, it seems like the song will end, but no.  Guitars play around the violin and then at 12 minutes, a new section develops around a two-note motif and complex percussion.  I love the ominous direction the song takes those two notes, and when the steady beat kicks in at 15 minutes, it makes the whole thing that much more intense.  It resolves itself into a wonderfully catchy melody.  At 17 minutes everything drops away except for a ringing guitar and strings. It seems like it might be an ending coda, but soon enough the drums come back and the song picks up again heading towards a proper climax, complete with crazed drumming that takes us until nearly the end of the song.  Another really satisfying conclusion.

The two shorter pieces are on the 7″ disc.  “Their Helicopters’ Sing” begins with a droning sound in the background.  And nearly all of its 6 minutes sound like screechy violins trying to break through the rumbling drone.  It more or less resolves itself by the end of the song into something a bit more tuneful.

“Strung Like Lights at Thee Printemps Erable” is the final 6 minute song.  Like “Helicopters” it is primarily a drone song.  This one is a little prettier at the beginning, with some delicate notes punctuating the noise, but it’s the screeching violin and feedbacking guitar that really create the noise.  By four and a half minutes that all drops away into a gentle, but still disconcerting, drone.

I don’t really love the droney stuff compared to the longer songs.  I find the two long songs to be some of their best work.  Perhaps if the droney parts were actually a part of the whole piece they would work better.

  • Thierry Amar – bass guitar, double bass, cello
  • David Bryant – electric guitar, dulcimer, Portasound, kemençe
  • Bruce Cawdron – drums, vibraphone, marimba, glockenspiel
  • Aidan Girt – drums
  • Karl Lemieux – 16mm frames artwork, photography [new]
  • Efrim Menuck – guitar, hurdy-gurdy
  • Mauro Pezzente – bass guitar
  • Mike Moya – guitar [replaced Roger Tellier-Craig]
  • Mauro Pezzente – bass guitar [new]
  • Sophie Trudeau – violin, Casio SK-5
  • [exit Norsola Johnson – cello]

 

[READ: April 10, 2016] “Hackles”

This issue of The Walrus was pretty bleak and this story is similarly bleak (what’s going on in Canada?).

The story is about a woman (told in first person) and her reflections back on a summer when she was fifteen, living in Enniskillen.  Her memories revolve around two dogs: Mort and Julie.  When she first encountered them they were guarding a farm house.  They saw her and snarled and growled at her causing her to trip and fall, but they would not cross their property line.  She says the thing that amazed her was their self-restraint–they never put one paw onto the road.

She began stopping by, looking at the dogs, for six or seven visits when the farmer’s son happened by.  He had come to tell the dogs to stop barking and then her saw her. (more…)

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John Metcalf–“Where the Yazoo Cross the Yellow Dog” (The Walrus, March 2016)

Posted in Canadian Content, Constellation Records, Excerpt, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Jelly Roll Morton, John Metcalf, Set at School, Short Story, Steve Albini, The Walrus on May 16, 2016| Leave a Comment »

walrus marchSOUNDTRACK: GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR!-Yanqui U.X.O. [CST024] (2002).

GybeyanquiuxoYanqui UXO is a single CD/double vinyl release coming in at about 80 minutes.  The lineup stayed the same, but there were a few changes.  First the band’s exclamation point moved from the end to after the “You.”  And second, this album was produced by Steve Albini.  Albini seems like an odd choice given his stripped down style and often brutal recording sound.  The album still sounds a lot like GYBE, but they have stripped out all of the field recordings and interstitial parts making a much smoother album.

The recording was described by the band as “just raw, angry, dissonant, epic instrumental rock.”  It’s hard to argue with that.

There are four or five songs on the record depending on if you have the LP or CD.  The first two songs “09-15-00, Part 1” and “09-15-00, Part 2” are merged into one on the LP.  “Rockets Fall on Rocket Falls.”  And then “Motherfucker=Redeemer, Part 1” and “Motherfucker=Redeemer, Part 2” (the LP removes the “parts” from the title, and just has the song “continued” on side 4—it’s also 5 minutes longer on the LP, primarily from ambient sounds that begin the song.  The LP also contains a hidden track called  “George Bush Cut Up While Talking.”

“09-15-00, Part 1” is 16 minutes long.  It opens slowly with what sounds like a harpsichord playing a rhythm while an echoed guitar plays a slow melody.  More instruments are slowly added as the song grows more intense.  At around 4 and half minutes a new melody enters from the bass.  It is complex but doesn’t alter the general tone of the song.  The song goes almost entirely silent at 6 and a half minutes, but a new melody starts—soft one note strings start as guitars creep into the sound.  Then a violin begins a melody that the guitar soon echoes.  The full band plays along with this melody at around 9 minutes and it gets more intense as the drums pick up speed.  This all drops away once more except for a martial beat and a bass line.  A guitar plays a melody over this simple section and then it builds and builds until the last few violin notes squeak out.

“09-15-00, Part 2” is six minutes long and is probably the simplest and most beautiful piece they have recorded.  There’s no build up, no drama, it’s just a pretty song full of strings and guitars.

“Rockets Fall on Rocket Falls” opens with a simple three note guitar melody and violins playing over the top.  The strings get bigger and more prominent and the rest of the band starts filling in.  Around three and half minutes in, the song gets really raucous…until it settles down again.  The song builds again, with the violins taking prominence.  At about seven-minutes, the song changes drastically with a lengthy descending series of notes (on horns) leading to a spare drum beat which lasts over a minute before the horns come back in.  After a minute or so of solitary horn notes, some guitars start playing in the background.  By around 13 minutes ominous chords have developed, overshadowing nearly everything else—and that steady drumbeat certainly causes some tension.  By 16:30 the tension has been released and the chords are welcoming and bright.  The song seems like it ends around nineteen minutes in, but there’s a gentle string section coda tacked on at the end.

“Motherfucker=Redeemer, Part 1” opens with gentle ringing sounds like a child’s toy.  After about 2 minutes, guitars start coming in—one playing staccato notes another playing chords and a bass playing as simple pattern.  At 3 and a half minutes the main riff comes it.  It is played on the violin and has vaguely Jewish feel to it.  There aren’t a ton of changes in this song, which more or less just builds around the same riff.  By 7 minutes there’s a soaring violin solo which screams over the top of the song.  There are moments when the song gets louder and quieter but it definitely feels like all one song until about 10 minutes when it more or less slows to a halt.  There’s some slow violin sounds an a simple guitar.  This second part of the song is similar to the first in that it is a regular guitar riff playing as the rest of the band fills in around it.  At around 13 minutes, a bigger fuzzier guitar takes over the riff.  The song continues in various forms until the end, when it is just a bass line.

“Part 2” is only ten minutes long (15 on vinyl).  It opens with the strings providing washes of music.  A new, fairly complex bassline opens the song.  The band builds the track with fast drumming and louder and louder strings.  It shifts tone at around 4 minutes.  And for the next 3 minutes it gets more intense until it seems to fade out, introducing a new guitar riff that works almost like a coda to the whole thing.  The drums are insane for this ending part and the band seems like they are just going nuts as the song comes crashing to an end.  The extra five minutes on vinyl come at the beginning of the song.  It starts with voices singing some basic “ahhhs” and then a guitar playing a ringing note.  It does add to the tension that builds up before the music begins properly and really should be checked out if you’ve only heard the CD version.

“George Bush Cut Up While Talking” is 3 minutes of a George Bush address cut up (it sounds like it is a skipping CD) interspersed with clapping that sounds like static and a voice saying “it is the predominant question, why am I here and what can I do to make it better how can I do what is right.”  (There’s a disconcerting video of this here.)

I think this album is really fantastic.  And while I enjoy their found sounds, I prefer that they’re just playing music.

After making this album the band would go on hiatus for…ten years.  Here’s the line up for Yanqui.

  • Thierry Amar – bass guitar
  • David Bryant – electric guitar
  • Bruce Cawdron – drums
  • Aidan Girt – drums
  • Norsola Johnson – cello
  • Efrim Menuck – guitar
  • Mauro Pezzente – bass guitar
  • Roger Tellier-Craig – guitar [replaced Mike Moya]
  • Sophie Trudeau – violin

[READ: April 11, 2016] “”Where the Yazoo Cross the Yellow Dog””

This is an except from a story about Jimbo and Rob.  The opening details Jimbo’s (James) parents, which I rather enjoyed.  Particularly the details about his father–his daily “three and three-quarter minute boiled egg served in a brightly coloured egg cup” and this statement:

‘I view hot toast,’ he said in one of his rare communications, pointing to the solitary Hovie slice lodged cold in the silver toast rack, ‘as offensively American.’

I also loved the dogmatic qualities of his father

‘What?’ said the Major.  ‘What?”
Which was his usual response top any reply short of complete agreement or grovelling.

And

“Don’t say ‘haven’t got,'” said the Major.  “It is both redundant and ill-bred.  ‘Haven’t’ will suffice.”

But the story is really about Jimbo and his friend Rob Forde (that cannot be a coincidence).  Jimbo was a teenager affecting sophistication (he wanted a smoking jacket) and he and Rob looked through junk shops for cigarette cases and art books. (more…)

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Stephen Marche–“The Shomer and the Boreal Owl” (The Walrus, January/February 2016)

Posted in Birds, Canadian Content, Constellation Records, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Sex, Short Story, Stephen Marche, The Walrus, Yuck! on May 15, 2016| Leave a Comment »

janfeb2016SOUNDTRACK: GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR!-“lift yr. skinny fists like antennas to heaven!” [CST012] (2000).

330px-LiftyrskinnyfistsSo far GYBE had released an album and an EP, so why not follow up with a double album/double CD.  This collection has either 4 songs with multiple parts or many many songs.  (The CD release suggests 4 songs–two per disc each over 20 minutes).

Although on the accompanying sheet, there’s a diagram in which Efrim has mapped out each of the four tracks and indicated where each part (with its own title) begins.

The first song “Storm” opens slowly.  Part one “Lift Yr. Skinny Fists, Like Antennas to Heaven…” has strings and simple, quiet guitar riff which build for about three minutes.  Then the guitars kick in and the song soars to majestic heights.  The guitar riff continues through this section and then horns add to the music to make it feel even bigger.  It’s an amazing start to a disc.

“Gathering Storm/Il Pleut à Mourir [+Clatters Like Worry]” slows things down as the last cymbal crashes fade and a violin remains the sole sound.  Then a new guitar riff begins, slow and sweet, once again with a kind of nod to “Amazing Grace” in the melody. Then the strings swell and take over.  When the bass line begins, it heralds the arrival of the drums and the song rocks along.  After a few minutes, the strings bring in the real tension of the storm.  The drums really come to the fore with lots of pounding and cymbal crashes.  The intensity begins to slow down until it thuds to silence.

     “‘Welcome to Barco AM/PM…’ [ L.A.X.; 5/14/00]”  opens with a staticky voice welcoming you to Barco and then lets you know not to associate with people washing windows or soliciting.  This track is about a minute before the piano begins indicating the start of the final part “Cancer Towers on Holy Road Hi-Way.”  Behind the piano are simple mournful chords, although the staticky voices continue until the end of the song.

Track two “Static” opens with “Terrible Canyons of Static.”  There are truck horns and train noises followed by ominous chords.   The noise and static continues through “Atomic Clock,” and the recording “at the tone 3 hours, 21 minutes according to universal time.”  This merges into “Chart #3” which contains a clear speaking preacher (who says ‘penetrate’ a lot) with a very sad violin melody.  A guitar starts playing a different melody which indicates the beginning of “World Police and Friendly Fire.”  A bass line takes over and is accompanied by a violin and guitar.  There’s tension in the music as it builds and builds.  But the drum beat means the start of a new violin melody complete with glockenspiel.  This staccato rhythms keep up for a time until it is replaced by a loud feedbacking guitar solo.  It’s followed by a fairly conventional section of drums and bass complimented with strings.  This section feels like it is building to something and it all coalesces in the cathartic crashing of the start of “[…+The Buildings They Are Sleeping Now]” (this particular release is outstanding as they really drag out the climax).  The riff for this is fast and heavy with more screaming guitar.  It only lasts for a minute or so, but it’s fantastic.  The rest of this section is primarily feedback and silence.  There’s some percussive sounds and moments of louder noises, but at over 5 minutes this section is a little too long.

Disc Two, track 3 “Sleep” has only three parts.  “Murray Ostril: ‘…They Don’t Sleep Anymore on the Beach…'” is a one-minute opening with a man (Murray?) talking about how Coney Island used to be so amazing.  “Monheim”  opens with some slow guitar and mournful strings playing over the top.  When the violin fades, a new guitar melody, more upbeat, begins.   The song stays pretty quiet until about 7 minutes in when the drums enter and an interesting guitar section continues to build in waves, but stays fairly mellow and upbeat.  Around 8 minutes the same motif grows to supersize.  And the wavery guitar? violin? that runs through this whole section grows louder and louder as the music swells and swells until a martial beat takes over and the melody is repeated (albeit much faster) which acts as an unexpected and satisfying conclusion to all that tension.  This section starts to deconstruct, leaving only a siren like guitar and lots of static which indicates the beginning of the third part, “Broken Windows, Locks of Love Pt. III.”   Out of the noise comes a simple two note pattern.  The song grows more complex with as the rhythm is kept by a single chime.  When the drums kick in (all of a sudden) the song gains momentum.  And the cool bass line that propels the rest oft he song (complete with horns) is great.  At about 18 minutes the song quiets down with just the guitar and drums keeping things afloat for a bit until it settles down into a very pretty string melody.  Soon enough, the rest of the band kicks in and the song starts to build again.  But rather than reaching a huge crescendo, it begins to fade out, leaving just a hi-hat and some feedback to fill out the last minute.

“Antennas to Heaven” is the shortest piece at only 18 minutes.  It opens with “Moya Sings ‘Baby-O’…” which is (I assume) Mike Moya (who is not credited on the record, I don’t think) singing “Baby-O” and playing the acoustic guitar.  As that fades, waves of noise swell as the 58 seconds of “Edgyswingsetacid” rumbles through.  It is then replaced by the 47 seconds of “[Glockenspiel Duet Recorded on a Campsite In Rhinebeck, N.Y.]” which sounds otherworldly.  The final short section is “‘Attention…Mon Ami…Fa-Lala-Lala-La-La…’ [55-St. Laurent]”  which is one minute long and consists primarily of children chatting ion French.

The main body of this track is the nearly ten minute “She Dreamt She Was a Bulldozer, She Dreamt She Was Alone in an Empty Field.”  It begins with gentle waves of music pulsing in and out.  After about 90 seconds of this, the song bursts into a rocking section–drums and electric guitar playing a propulsive beat.  This doesn’t last long though as the sound of wind howling takes over the song and an ominous almost metallic ticking sound rings out.  This resolves into a two note motif with strings.  It turns onto more of a song proper with all of the instruments supporting a pretty guitar solo.  As the song fades to just violins, “Deathkamp Drone” picks up with various unsettling washes of sounds.  The final section “[Antennas to Heaven…]”  is a strange screechy-sounding guitar solo that echoes through to the end.

This disc is very big and very long, but aside from a few moments where the noise or drones lingers a bit too long, there’s just so much going on that the music never gets dull.  It’s quite an achievement.

Godspeed You Black Emperor has had a few lineup changes over the years.  For this double LP, they added a new guitarist (and a lot of supporting musicians), they changed violinists and lost the french horn. 

  • Thierry Amar – bass guitar
  • David Bryant – electric guitar
  • Bruce Cawdron – drums
  • Aidan Girt – drums
  • Norsola Johnson – cello
  • Efrim Menuck – guitar
  • Mauro Pezzente – bass guitar
  • Roger Tellier-Craig – guitar [replaced Mike Moya]
  • Sophie Trudeau – violin

[READ: January 26, 2016] “The Shomer and the Boreal Owl”

I find that Stephen Marche likes to really push boundaries.  And I find that some of his stories I like and others I simply do not.

And this one I did not.

The whole premise is weirdly unsettling.  Ephraim wakes up one day and finds that he gets really turned on by wild animals. He gets an erection when he sees a deer running through the woods.  What the fuck?

We meet this man who has had many troubled events in his life–the death of his daughter, his divorce soon after, the loss of his job and livelihood.  And now this. (more…)

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Jill Margo–“How to Become a Mascot” (The Walrus, November 2015)

Posted in Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Constellation Records, Funny (strange), Godspeed You Black Emperor, Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, Iron Maiden, Jill Margo, Mascot, Short Story, The Walrus on May 14, 2016| 2 Comments »

nov2015SOUNDTRACK: GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR!-Slow Riot for New Zerø Kanada [CST006] (1999).

epAfter the success of their debut album, GYBE released an EP.  Being ever cryptic, the EP cover is a series of letters in Hebrew, with no mention of the band.  The Hebrew says: “Tohu va bohu” (formless and empty)

There are two tracks on this disc.  The first is called “Moya” and is something of a reworking of Gorecki’s third symphony.  The second is “BBF3” which refers “Blaise Bailey Finnegan III” the man who rants through much of the song.

“Moya” is ten minutes long (on vinyl it is played at 45 RPM).  Ominous strings open the song.  Indeed, much of the song is made of violin and cello passages intertwining.  Until about 4 minutes when the guitar starts playing.  Drums bring drama to the song about half way in.  And that’s when the guitars and strings intertwine to make a huge sound.  By around 7 minutes the song has built to a huge crescendo, but the addition of pounding bass makes everything even more intense.  It resolves with a great fast riff from the strings which the band plays for a few minutes until it settles down with just a cello and violin playing the end.

“BBF3” is a nearly 18 minute piece (on vinyl it is played at 33 RPM) with waves of music behind Finnegan being interviewed.  He tells about the American government and then about his speeding ticket (and what he told the judge–“shut your fucking mouth and listen”).  After about 3 minutes, the music changes to a new chord, a brighter sound.  As BBF3 declares that America is a “third world, third rate, third class slum,” the drums get very loud and then drop away to near silence.  The guitar pokes around quietly for a bit until it turns into a big song–drums and strings and guitars that only grows bigger as it progresses.  It builds more and more and then drops away again as BBF3 begins talking again, this time about his gun collection.  And then he reads his “poem” (which is actually the lyrics to an Iron Maiden song, “Virus”).  And then the song builds once again.  This time faster and more intensely.  It more or less grinds to a halt at around 15 minutes and then resumes after a few second of silence with some strings resuming a mournful melody until the end.

This is a pretty intense collection of music. And according to Wikipedia, Users of the website Rate Your Music rate it as the greatest EP of all time.

Godspeed You Black Emperor! has had a few lineup changes over the years.  For this EP, they changed violinists and lost the french horn. 

  • Thierry Amar — bass guitar, double bass
  • David Bryant — guitar, tapes
  • Bruce Cawdron — drums, percussion, keyboards
  • Aidan Girt — drums, percussion
  • Norsola Johnson — cello
  • Efrim Menuck — guitar, keyboards
  • Mike Moya — guitar
  • Mauro Pezzente — bass guitar
  • Sophie Trudeau — violin [replaced Christophe – violin]

no longer with the band: Thea Pratt – French horn

[READ: January 26, 2016] “How to Become a Mascot”

This story is indeed a how-to account of becoming a mascot.

It is even told in a technical manual type of style.  Although the beginning is pretty unexpected: “First, quit you day job and go back to school, even though you’re thirty-two already.  Do this because your boyfriend is dead and you will never get to run your fingers trough his curls again.”

But aside from this rather dark opening, the rest of the story is kind of funny.

The narrator is aware of a gingerbread man costume at the local outdoor shopping centre–her aunt works administration there.  No one knows how the costume got there, but she thinks it would be a good idea to take it on as a job–$15 an hour.

The first few paragraphs describe fitting it and getting used to wearing it.  “Burn 700 calories trying to undo the zipper.”  Then you must learn routines and dances. (more…)

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Kris Bertin–“Cowan” (The Walrus, October 2015)

Posted in Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Constellation Records, Fears, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Kris Bertin, Short Story, The Walrus, Violence, Yuck! on May 13, 2016| Leave a Comment »

walrusSOUNDTRACK: GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR!-F♯ A♯ ∞ [CST003] (1997).

faGYBE is more or less the flagship band for the Constellation label.  Their band has spawned many other bands, and nearly every member has played on someone else’s record or released a solo album.  Which is why it’s surprising to realize just how few albums they have released.

This first album caused quite a stir.  It was released on vinyl and then released (with an extra 29 minute song) on CD.  Few bands sounded like this before, and a whole new genre was created around their brand of multi-piece, sorta orchestral post-rock.

There are three songs on this record, but based on some information given in the CD, the songs have been informally broken into parts.

The Dead Flag Blues.  The song opens with “The Dead Flag Blues (Intro).”  It features a rough-voiced man speaking what I have recently learned is a script by Efrim Menuck.  Backed by a string melody, the speaker describes a derelict city, where the government is corrupt and the inhabitants are drunks.  After the strings fade, two guitars play a repeating motif with occasional string fills and then a slow solo violin section which fade to silence

For part 2 “Slow Moving Trains” / “The Cowboy…”  the sound of a train whistle interrupts the quiet.  It’s followed by a series of slow descending notes on a guitar.  After a few minutes a twangy guitar comes in to play a Western-ish motif.  The rest of the band slowly comes in and creates what sounds like the first real Godspeed sound—a full band making beautiful orchestral instrumental music.  It’s all too brief though as it melds into part 3.

Part 3 is known as “The Dead Flag Blues (Outro).  It opens with violin and glockenspiel playing a much more upbeat tune.  It lingers for around 2 minutes and then the songs ends.

“East Hastings” has three parts as well  “…Nothing’s Alrite in Our Life…” / “The Dead Flag Blues (Reprise)” opens with bagpipes and a man ranting.  It’s only 1 minute and a half before “The Sad Mafioso” kicks in.  This part builds slowly with spare guitars and waves of sound.  The guitar reconciles itself to a riff, slow and quiet, with a neat minor note in the middle.  It sounds like the kind of thing that is just building to something bigger, slightly more ominous.  And as the band kicks in again, the riff becomes much more meaty, but before it can totally take over, it gives way to strings and drums–playing a simple melody that continues the feeling of the guitars.  When this ends, far in the distance you can hear a voice singing the melody although it is quickly replaced by two guitars  playing the riffs while the strings keep jumping in.  And then they start working together, growing bigger and louder and faster.  Until it reaches its end with squealing feedback and a man saying “they had a large barge…” which opens up part three, “Drugs in Tokyo” / “Black Helicopter.”   This last part opens with a guitar playing harmonic notes along with washes of noise and feedback.  Some of the noise sounds, yes, like helicopters (and this is where the band makes some use of the coolness of headphones).  It’s a brief section that ends what is technically side one (although I see that the vinyl had about one minute extra at the end of the song).

Track three, “Providence,” is 29-minutes long and has five or six parts, depending on if you include the 3 minutes of silence.  “Divorce & Fever…”  opens with a lengthy spoken piece by “Blaise Bailey Finnegan III”, who will have his own track dedicated to him on the next GYBE release.  The music opens with distorted and backwards sounding guitars.  Organs add to the mix and then this short section morphs into part 2.  “Dead Metheny…” begins with some quiet guitar notes with the violins playing some mournful notes.  But the glockenspiel jumps into play a pretty, fast melody.  And then the drums start pounding away while harmonic chords are played over the top.  There are simultaneous guitar solos in each ear while the drums continue to play loud and fast.

Kicking Horse on Brokenhill” has a staticy/echoey/distorted voice singing lyrics that are really hard to hear to a melody that is similar to “Amazing Grace.”  After that fairly unsettling intro, the band begins a great section with multiple guitars and other instruments playing the same melody (this is the “Godspeed sound” in a nutshell.  By the middle of this, it has built to something enormous–full of guitar lines and drums with the support of what feels like the rest of the band.

“String Loop Manufactured During Downpour…” has a distant voice (I assume from a record based on the static) begins singing “where are you going” in a rather haunted echo).  The rest of the track is primarily washes of notes and stat icy noise until the 3 minutes of silence which precede the final proper track, “J.L.H. Outro” (stands for John Lee Hooker).  It begins with guitars and washes of sound.  The guitars begin exploring the main riff in different ways.  When the song finally builds to a full band, there are different drum beats in each ear, creating a big cacophony of sound while the guitar wails away.

It’s a pretty great album, with many different elements–weird spoken word and fantastic instrumentals sections.

Godspeed You Black Emperor has had a few lineup changes over the years.  They began with some 15 members and ultimately settled on these ten for F♯ A♯ ∞.

  • Aidan Girt – drums
  • Bruce Cawdron – percussion
  • Christophe – violin
  • David Bryant – guitar
  • Efrim Menuck – electric guitar
  • Mauro Pezzente – bass guitar
  • Mike Moya – guitar, banjo
  • Norsola Johnson – cello
  • Thea Pratt – French horn
  • Thierry Amar – bass guitar

[READ: January 26, 2106] “Cowan”

The previous Walrus story that Bertin wrote (back in 2013) was very dark.  And so is this one.  But whereas I found “The Eviction Process” compelling, this one I just didn’t like and couldn’t wait for it to be over.

This strikes me a kind of redemption story–the word guilt is mentioned once or twice.  And it seems like perhaps this was the author’s attempt to make amends for being a shit heel. Except there is no real sense of redemption or apology or anything of the sort.

The end even seems like the narrator is simply lying. (more…)

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Karl Ove Knausgaard [Knausgård]–My Struggle: Book Five [Some Rain Must Fall] (2010) [translated 2015] (total pages for books 1-5: 2493 [British edition 2320])

Posted in 808 State, Agnar Mykle, Alle Vaerste!, Anne Bøe, Arid Nyquist, Barry Gifford, Big Books, Bildungsroman, Biography, Bjork, Books about writers, Bret Easton Ellis, Culture Shock, Dagsavisen, David Sylvian, Don Bartlett, Echo and the Bunnymen, Eldrid Lunden, Ellen Einan, Else Karin Else Karin Bukkøy, Erling Gjerlsvik, Espen Stueland, Finn Øglœnd, Food, Foreign Books, Genesis, Georg Johannesen, Guadalcanal Diary, Hans Herbjørnsrud, Jan Kjærstad, Jay McInerney, Jayne Anne Phillips, Jealousy, Jon Fosse, Julio Cortázar, Kafkatrakterne, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Karl Ove Knausgård, Katarina Frostenson, Kjartan Fløgstad, Klassekampen, Knut Hamsun, Kong Klang, Liv Lundberg, M. Ageyev, Merete Morken Andersen, Michael Strunge, Neneh Cherry, Ole Robert Sunde, Paal-Helge Haugen, Parenting, Paul Auster, Pink Floyd, Pixies, Prefab Sprout, Raga Rockers, Ragnar Hovland, Rush, Søren Ulrik Thomsen, Sex, Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth, Steinar Løding, Stig Larsson, Stig Sæterbakken, Studvest, Svein Jarvoll, Sverre Knudsen, Terje Dragseth, The Alarm, The Cramps, The Golden Palominos, The Sugarcubes, The Waterboys, Thomas Mann, Tor Ulven, Tore Renberg, Tortoise, Translation, Unlikable main character, Vinduet, Vreid, Yuck! on May 9, 2016| 2 Comments »

  karlove5SOUNDTRACK: RAGA ROCKERS-“Slakt” [“Slaughter”] (1988), “Hun er Fri” [“She is Free”] (1988) and “Noen å hate” [“Someone to hate”] (1990).

ragaKarl Ove mentions many bands in his books.  Raga Rockers appeared twice in this one.  I can’t find a ton about them online, because they never really made it beyond Norway, but the Google translated version of their website says:

Raga Rockers is an ingenious rock ‘n roll band that has existed since 1982.

Today the band consists of: Michael Krohn (vocals, lyrics), Hugo Alvar Stein (keyboards / guitar), Eivind Staxrud (guitar), Arne Sæther (keys), Livio Aiello (bass) and Jan Kristiansen (drums).

The band came out of the punk community in the early eighties, but became such a “poppy” large parts of the Norwegian people have founded acquaintance with them.  Songs like “She is free” and “Someone to hate” is almost singalong classics! Their greatest triumph came perhaps in 1999 when they played for thousands of ecstatic Norwegians at the yellow stage at Roskilde Festival. (Reviews of the show by Dagbladet (which Karl Ove wrote for) and Dagsavisen–both are in English.

Despite their punk roots and the rather violent song titles, the songs are almost poppy–heavy guitars but simple chords and a singer who doesn’t sound angry at all.  In fact, if I didn’t read about their punk roots, I’d swear these songs are kinda goofy.

“Slakt” is a simple song, opening with a 4/4 drum and splashes of guitar.  The middle is a bluesy riff with a chorus of “ah ha ha”  The lead singer’s voice is mostly kind of deep–not quite what I expected from the heavy guitars.

“Hun Er Fri” is quite different from the others songs.  It’s only 90 seconds long and features a piano.  The chords are still simple the piano may be playing single notes in fact).  The lyrics are pretty much nonstop and kind of fast.  It seems like a silly pop trifle and I can see why it’s popular among their fans.  The first time I listened to it, I was surprised it ended when it did.  This bootleg live version is certainly fun.

rocknrollThese two songs came from their 1988 album Forbudte følelser [Prohibited feelings]

“Noen å hate” has a bit more of a metal sound, but is essentially the same kind of heavy rock with simple chord progressions.  There’s a good solo at the end.  A black metal band called Vreid has done a cover of this song (which really only sounds different because the Vreid singer is more growly).

This song comes from their 1990 album Rock n’ Roll Party.

And yes, they are still around.  They took a hiatus in the 2000s but came back with three albums 2007’s Übermensch, 2010’s Shit Happens and 2013’s Faktor X.

[READ: May 1, 2016] My Struggle Book Five

karlove 5ukI realized as I read this fifth book that I should have been keeping a vague sense of the timeline of these books.  Specifically, because he opens this book with this: “The fourteen years I lived in Bergen from 1988 to 2002 are long gone.”  So if he was born in 1968, this book covers roughly ages 19-33.

So my general outline for the other volumes:
Book Five: 1988-2002 (19-33)
Book Four: 1987 (18)
Book Three: 1968-1981  (1-13)
Book Two: 2008 (40) (with flashbacks to meeting his second wife in 2003 or so)
Book One: 2008 (40) (with flashbacks to his father’s death in 1998 or so)

What era could Book Six possibly be about?

We’ll find out next year in what is said to be the 1,200 page final volume.

So as I mentioned above, Karl Ove talks about the fourteen years he lived in Bergen.  And it made me laugh that he says:

The fourteen years I lived in Bergen, from 1988 to 2002, are long gone, no traces of them are left, other than as incidents a few people might remember, a flash of recollection here, a flash of recollection there, and of course whatever exists in my own memory of that time.  But there is surprisingly little.

And then he proceeds to write 600+ pages about that time. (more…)

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Gabriel Kahane–“Learning to Look at L.A.” (New Yorker, June 10, 2014)

Posted in Cigarettes, David Byrne, Die Hard, Essays, Frank Lloyd Wright, Gabriel Kahane, Gabriel Kahane, Hamburgers, New Yorker, Patti Smith, Punch Brothers, Reyner Banham, Shake Shack, Tiny Desk Concert on May 8, 2016| Leave a Comment »

june10SOUNDTRACK: GABRIEL KAHANE-Tiny Desk Concert #178 (November 26, 2011).

kahaneWhen I saw Kahane a few months ago, he looked very different from the fellow here.  (More hair and a beard will do that).

I found Kahane’s music to be really enjoyable even if it was never really that catchy.  His songs are complex and thought-inducing, with many layers.  Although I found that after listening to his songs a number of times, I could really find the hooks in there.

His voice has a kind of soft quality to it–not quiet, but very much not harsh, which allows his enunciations to be heard quite easily.

For “Charming Disease,” Kahane plays keyboards.  He’s accompanied by strings and a guitar (I love the coloration of the guitar).  Since he also writes classical music, his pop songs have a distinctly classical feel (even without the string quartet to back him up). So the piano lines that he plays are simple chords, they are full lines.  And there are times when the guitar plays beautiful counterpoint to his chords.  This song is about an alcoholic (“I took you home and took away your keys”), but you’d never know the darkness of the lyrics from the melody which is bright and cheerful.  I love the middle section of the song–the chord progressions during the “Wine Dark Sea” are, in my mind anyway, very Kahane, and they’re what I love about his music.

For “Where Are the Arms” he switches to acoustic guitar.  You know the song isn’t going to be simple when he counts of “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6”  I love that he plays a continuing picked section while the guitar and strings play chords behind him, really fleshing out the song.

As they prepare for the final song, one of the violinists knocks over her music stand and he jokes, how did you fit an 11 piece band back her but we can’t get a string quartet.  Someone shouts that it’s the strings–the bows.  Kahane says, yes, “One string is two humans–ego and otherwise.”  To groans from the band.

For “Last Dance” I love that he sings his vocal melody along with the guitar melody (something Frank Zappa used to do–it’s complex and interesting).   And while there is certainly a melody there, he really complicates it with all of the single notes.  The strings come in and the song modifies somewhat until his voice seems to resume the complex singing style.  But then in the middle of the song (“she begins to sing”) it switches to a very catchy section with a refrain of “sex and cigarettes.”  It’s the most immediate thing in the show and shows how poppy Kahane can be.  even if the ending is quite abrupt.

He really deserves repeated and close listening.

[READ: February 5, 2016] “Learning to Look at L.A.”

I know Gabriel Kahane from when he opened for Punch Brothers this past summer.  I really enjoyed his set and found his album charming and eccentric but very literary.

Turns out that at the time of the release of The Ambassador he wrote this piece for the New Yorker as well.  It explores the themes that he delved into for his album, especially architecture in L.A.   He even opens with a discussion of Die Hard.  Like his song “Villains (4616 Dundee Dr.)” which contains the lyric:

I’ve been thinking a lot
About action movies of the 1980’s
Particularly Die Hard,
Which seems to illustrate
So many of the anxieties
Central to a time + place:
Japanese capital
The waning of the cold war
Pride in a downtown
What did they build it for?

He says that his “affection for this film is one hundred-percent unironic.” (more…)

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Rivka Galchen–new television, new television, new drama, new drama (Harper’s, June 2015, September 2015, December 2015, March 2016)

Posted in Books about music, Charles Ives, Essays, George Frideric Handel, Harold Pinter, Harper's, Hilary Hahn, Louie, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, Paddington, Rivka Galchen, Tiny Desk Concert, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Wooster Group on April 27, 2016| Leave a Comment »

galchen SOUNDTRACK: HILARY HAHN-Tiny Desk Concert #169 (October 21, 2011).

hilaryHilary Hahn is a violinist.  She looks to be about 12 (although she isn’t, but she did start playing when she was very young).

She plays two beautiful pieces by Bach (she made an album of Bach Partitas when she was only 16):

Gigue (from Partita No. 3) is fun and lively and Siciliana (from Sonata No. 1) is somber and sweet.  Her fingering is perfect.  She is playing an 1864 Vuillaume fiddle and her sound is beautiful.

Earlier in 2011, she had released an album of Charles Ives’ four violin sonatas.   The blurb says that Ives weaved bits of Americana into his sonatas–quotes from old hymns and folks songs.

For her final piece, she combines four of these pieces: “Shall We Gather at the River,” “Jesus Loves Me,” “Battle Cry of Freedom” and “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” into her own melody.  She comments:

“I’ve actually never played this before, and it doesn’t really exist,” she admitted before launching into the tunes. “You may recognize them. Maybe after hearing these, if you hear the sonatas, you’ll be like, ‘I know that part!'”

She also says she will try to accompany herself.  I wasn’t sure what she meant–she doesn’t use a looping pedal or anything, but the blurb says she plays “just the right double stops (two strings at once)” and it sounds beautiful.

She also asks if anyone minds if she wears a hat.  Ives was often photographed with a hat  and there was Bob’s fedora.  It looks quite nice on her.

[READ: April 26, 2016] new movies, new drama

I was surprised to see that Rivka Galchen had been doing reviews in Harper’s (that image above is actually from The New York Times, apologies).  It seems like a step down from writing long pieces or short stories.  But who knows, maybe it’s a good gig (heck, wouldn’t I love to write about movies and television …hey wait).

Over the past year she has written five reviews of entertainments.

In March 2015, she reviewed Paddington and I really liked her insights into the movie (I posted about that already, here).

Then in June 2015, she wrote about Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.  I had enjoyed the show by the time I read this piece (when it first came out), but I have just re-read it and it really makes me want to watch the new season (I watched the first episode but didn’t really love it as much as the previous season).  She raves about the opening credit sequence (which is fantastic) but spends a lot of the essay talking about how groundbreaking the show is because we are used to seeing adult men act like boys, but rarely do we see adult women act like girls (with glitter sneakers and a backpack).   The interesting thing is that “She invites admiration, yet it will be a rare viewer who would want to trade places with her…That’s what makes her a more radical invention than most earlier female comic leads.”

Galchen likes the “surprisingly glittering quality to dark moments… which appear unexpectedly and then dont quite vanish.”

She ties all this back to Lucy and Desi (Desilu produces the show). In real life, Desi Arnaz was discriminated against and relied on Lucille Ball to get him onto her show, thus the joke of Lucy trying to get into Ricky Ricardos’s show (I had no idea).

In September 2015, she writes about Louie (a show that she mentioned in the previous essay “Hallelujah”).  This time she is reviewing Season 5 of the show.  She talks of Louie as having a superpower: love.  “he transforms his sister’s aggressive gun-wielding ex-boyfriend into a gentle, giggling man who learns to knit.  Galchen focuses on the fourth episode, with his brother Bobby.  “Part of Louie’s superhero of love is his ability to occupy a position of humiliation and dejection, as if this might protect those around him from the same fate.”

She points out that no one on the show actually thinks Louie has any superpowers, but she enjoys reading it as such.  I have never been able to get into Louie, but she certainly make it sound very compelling–maybe I should start with Season 5..

In December of 2015, she wrote under the heading “new drama.” She writes about Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation. She says the movie is about two groups who are above the law fighting each other.  “We never learn what all these missions are intended to bring about. Its’ simply presented as a given that the goals of the I.M.F. are good and that those of the Syndicate are bad.”

I’m intrigued at this note from Galchen: the original theme song was 5/4; “at various points in Rogue Nation, it’s been altered to 4/4.  This is some say, because the 4/4 beat is easier to dance to.

I was delighted at the way she segued the review of this movie into a review of a performance of Antigone, in which  a woman breaks the law to give her dead brother a proper burial.

These are characters for whom what is past–Antigone’s necessitous origins, Creon’s tainted ascent to the throne–is prophetic; the future is there waiting for them all along, and the future is death.  That the dead are still alive and trying to destroy us is, of course, also the premise of Rogue Nation.

She ties in that 4/4 dance beat at the end by mentioning a friend who said after watching the play that he couldn’t stop thinking of John Boehner (who had just resigned).  Galchen say that although it’s tempting to believe that the Pope’s words of kindness were what compelled him to resign, him to retire, it was mostly likely inspired by pressure from the right, but we prefer the Pope version–it’s an easier beat to follow.

Finally in March 2016, Galchen wrote about the Wooster Group, an experimental theater company.  She talks about their lucid, fevered work.  She saw their Hamlet in 2007 and was delighted by their unexpected delivery.  And now (well, then) they are doing Harold Pinter’s The Room.

She speaks of Pinter–his use of violence and long dramatic pauses.  The Room is a one-act black comedy. One of the things the Wooster Group does is show, behind the actors, television screens, partially turned to the audience with what appears to be Chinese political debates.  The actors wear earpieces that pipes the audio from these screens into their ears which no doubt impacts their delivery.

Wooster Group revels in the absurdity of their shows.  I’d be curious to see one of their productions, although i won’t be rushing out to do so.

 

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Rivka Galchen–“Hallelujah” (Harper’s, December 2012)

Posted in Books about music, Charles Jennens, Christmas, Easter, Essays, George Frideric Handel, Harper's, Irish Writer, Jonathan Swift, Louie, Religion, Rivka Galchen, Tiny Desk Concert, Wilco on April 26, 2016| Leave a Comment »

HarpersWeb-Cover-2016-01-410SOUNDTRACK: WILCO-Tiny Desk Concert #168 (October 17, 2011).

wilco2011Wilco is virtually the only band to have been asked back for a second Tiny Desk Concert.  I’ve listened to this concert a bunch of times but didn’t realize I hadn’t posted about it here.

There is a huge crowd for this show and as it starts, everyone shouts WILCO!

The band sounds great with all the members crowding in behind the Tiny Desk.  Tweedy plays his big acoustic guitar, Nels Cline plays all kinds of interesting sounds in the corner.  The drummer is on a small computer thing that seems to be made up of all manner of small percussive items.  There’s a bassist and keyboardist and a second guitarist all making a great sound.

“Dawned on Me” starts the set and sounds great in this setting—I love the walking bass throughout the song and of course Nels Cline plays a wonderfully insane noisy solo amid this simple and catchy folk song

Before the second song, “Whole Love” Glen’s got to get some things out of his toiletry bag.  This is another great song with Nels playing high notes to complement the rumbling bass.  No idea what the drummer is playing this time—a book?  Tweedy sings in falsetto for much of the song.

Tweedy says “this next song requires a certain amount of tuning—quiet please.”

He asks if anyone has any questions and when Bob says “I’m speechless,” someone on staff says “That’s a first,” which gets everyone laughing.  Bob asks if Jeff likes his bag of toys and Jeff says anyone who would make fun of his bag of toys is an idiot.  Sadly we never see the bag or the toys.

“Born Alone” has another great bass line that opens the song and the drummer is hitting lord only knows what.  This was the song by Wilco that made me really fall in love with the band.  Cline’s slide guitar is very cool.  But there’s something about the end of the song when the whole band plays a series of chords–the steps keep going lower and lower, and each time you think they’re going to stop, they just keep going. It’s very fun.

After that song Tweedy admits to breaking a sweat–Tiny Sweat!

The final song is “War on War.”  He says they played it about ten years ago in the city possibly for the first time.  They messed up the ending the other day, but they hope it doesn’t mess them up this time.  Cline goes berserk on his guitar.  The whole band rocks this song.  There’s some really cool harmonies on this track, too.  The keyboardist even has a little cow sound maker (that you can just barely hear, until the very end).  They get the ending right and Tweedy shouts “Nailed It!”

There is much applause as Bob asks, “Pretty good for a Saturday, huh?”  And as the applause dies down, someone yells, “Now lets trash this dump!”

It’s a great set.

[READ: March 25, 2016] “Hallelujah!”

I wanted to finish up all of the Harper’s pieces by Rivkla Galchen.  I had no idea what to expect from this piece.

It is one of those pieces in Harper’s that has images in the background–in this case musical notes and a portrait of Handel–to go with the  story.  And it is broken up into many little sections labelled 1. Sinfonia (Overture) 2. Accompagnato. 3. Air, etc up through 53 (!).

So this is obviously about Handel’s Messiah and the Hallelujah Chorus. (more…)

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Helen DeWitt–“Climbers” (Harper’s, November 2014)

Posted in Books about writers, Chris Bathgate, Cigarettes, Harper's, Helen DeWitt, Randall Munroe, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert on April 25, 2016| Leave a Comment »

nov2014SOUNDTRACK: CHRIS BATHGATE-Tiny Desk Concert #167 (October 14, 2011).

bathgateI’d never heard of Chris Bathgate before this Tiny Desk Concert.  Bathgate is a singer and guitarist.  For this show he has a band of five—another guitarist, bassist, violinist and drummer.

The first song, “Everything (Overture),” opens with a lovely slow echoing guitar sound.  And then Bathgate and the violinist sing a lovely, slow duet—their voices play off each other very nicely and the lovely repetitive guitar riff is perfect background.  The song picks up a bit for the chorus (which is mostly them singing do do dos) and the rousing chorus is a nice contrast to the quieter verses.  I really like at the end when the second guitarist switches to the floor tom and adds to the intensity of the song.

He says that “No Silver” is “about living in Michigan and being broke.”  The song is faster and a little heavier.  There more good harmonies and a nice play between the loud acoustic guitar and the fiddle (this song is much more bluegrassy sounding).  When the music drops off and its only drums and fiddle—the song booms.

He introduces “Salt Year” with “Think about the first person you ever had a crush on. so maybe not first crushes but…first lustses”

The slide guitarist messes up on the opening of the song and asks if they can do trainwrecks—his mother will never forgive him.  Bathgate says they should leave it in. So they begin again, with that mournful slide guitar and Bathgate’s delicate vocals.

He tells a lengthy story about the final song “Levee.”  He was in Maine (he had lobster ice cream for the first time–don’t try it, it’s terrible) and he was on an all night drive with a crying friend.  She was inconsolable until the turned a corner and saw a gigantic harvest moon the filled the windshield.  What’s odd about the story telling is that he seems to be telling the violinist rather than the audience.  But that doesn’t matter because this song is fantastic.  It begins with some more great harmony vocals (the violinist has a really great, slightly unusual voice.  I loved that after each line, the violinist and the second guitarist play the floor tom with a great pounding rhythm.  And the bass/guitar riff between verses is great too.

As the show ends, they reveal that they band brought pie for everyone!

[READ: February 5, 2016] “Climbers”

This story is about writers and the publishing world.  But it comes from a wholly unusual angle that I liked a lot

The story begins with Gil raving about the world of Peter Dijkstra.  Peter Dijkstra is a Dutch author who spent some time in an asylum.  He wrote five novels in Dutch and recently had a novella and some short stories translated into English.

Gil works in publishing and says he would do anything–anything–to get Dijkstra published in the States. (more…)

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