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Archive for the ‘The Body’ Category

The Body / Big | Brave / Carnivorous Bells (PhilaMOCA, Philadelphia, PA, August 7, 2026) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Big ‡ Brave, Carnivorous Bells, Philadelphia, PA, PhilaMOCA, The Body on August 7, 2026| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: June 24, 2026] The Body / Big | Brave / Carnivorous Bells

I saw Big | Brave open for SUNN0))).  I can’t believe it has been almost ten years since that show.  Big | Brave left a huge impact on me and I’ve been following them ever since.  I’ve really wanted to see them again and it just never seems to happen.

I had a ticket for this show long before we decided to go on vacation this week.  We actually arrived home on the night of this show, but there was just no way I could make it work.

I didn’t know The Body even though they made an album with Big | Brave back in 2021.  They are a doom/sludge metal band who have expanded into using other genres as well.  From what I can tell, vocally there is a lot of distorted screaming

Carnivorous Bells are from Philly.  They’re noisy and weird and remind me of noisy weird bands from the 90s.  I don’t think I’d enjoy a 90 minute set from them, but a short opening set was probably a lot of fun.

Here’s a video of them from Ortleib’s

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Jennifer Egan–”Dealing with the Dead” (New Yorker, October 11, 2010)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Death, Essays, Jennifer Egan, New Yorker, The Body on January 19, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE BODY-“Empty Heath” (2010).

This is Viking’s fourth pick for album of the year.  (I skipped number three because it is an acoustic finger picked-instrumental album which I liked fine but which wasn’t anything special to me).  The Body is a fascinating band, and they are hard to learn anything definitive about online.   But if you’re looking for the album, All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood, you can get it on Amazon, or (cheaper) from At a Loss Recordings.

This song opens quietly with a person saying “together.”   It’s followed by a fascinating chorus singing what sounds like possibly Peruvian throat singing.  And then the guitars bash in.  Heavy droning guitars (with a screaming “lead” vocalist buried in the mix).  The song often stutters to a halt only to pick up the doom and mysterious gloom.

The notes about this album say that it is a duo (why is some of the heaviest, most menacing music made by duos?)  At some point in the song, the music stops and you hear just the chanting (which now sounds like it’s reversed vocals).  I have no idea what to make of this song or if the rest of the disc sounds like this, but I’m really intrigued by it.  Viking calls it “the most surreal doom-metal record of 2010” and I agree.

[READ: December 30, 2010] ”Dealing with the Dead”

Jenifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad is on my short list of books to read this January so I was intrigued to read this little piece by her.

Her Something Borrowed article (the third in the series) is quite different from the others.  It begins with a fairly shocking account of her mother’s robbery at gunpoint. She had been working in a gallery and the robbers thought they would have cash on hand (they didn’t).  There was talk of shooting them until they were inadvertently rescued by a delivery man.

This rather exciting story mellows out pretty quickly in to a far more reflective and mellow story. (more…)

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