SOUNDTRACK: LIGHTNING DUST-Tiny Desk Concert #38 (December 7, 2009).
Lightning Dust is a side project of heavy psychedelic band Black Mountain. Lightning Dust is a kind of folk version of the band (with Amber Webber on vocals instead of Joshua Wells). Her voice is full of vibrato (she almost sounds nervous at times). The songs are simple, as folk songs tend to be, performed mainly on the acoustic guitar with organ backing tones.
“Antonia Jane” is very pretty, especially the tone of the organ that accompanies the acoustic guitar. “History” has a nice unexpected chord change when the chorus rolls around. For the final song, “I Knew”, Wells switches to 12 string guitar instead of keyboard–something he says he never does. The song is faster and more upbeat, not necessarily because of the extra guitar, but it really broadens the sound a lot and makes it even catchier (even if it does give it a more countryish feeling). And the backing vocals are quite wonderful.
I prefer Black Mountain to Lightning Dust but the songwriting is quite good.
[READ: May 27, 2014] “Camilo”
I don’t know Zambra’s work. This one was translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell and I thought it was terrific.
The story is fairly simple, although it is revealed via a lot of layers which is very interesting. It opens with a young man yelling “I’m Camilo…your daddy’s godson” and the narrator being suspicious of this statement. But it turns out to be true. This boy is his father’s godson.
The narrator’s father had been good friends with Camilo’s father Big Camilo. They were best friends until they had a huge fight and never spoke again. That was (obviously) after Camilo was born. But in addition to this fight and lack of talking, Big Camilo later left the country all together and moved to Paris where he started a new family, leaving Camilo and Camilo’s mother back in Chile.
Soon the narrator and Camilo became almost inseparable. Camilo was a few years older and was something of a protective presence for him. Even the narrator’s older sister was infatuated with him. In fact, even the narrator’s father liked him, although he did remind him a bit too much of Big Camilo. The one difference was that Big Camilo (and the narrator’s family) loved soccer, but Camilo didn’t know a thing about it. (more…)
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Back in 2020, Destroyer was the last show I saw before everything shut down. I bought tickets for them the last time they came to Philly (2022) but wound up going to Pup with my son that night instead.
I Just Read About That... 