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Archive for the ‘Record Labels’ Category

Bastien Vivés–Polina (2011) [translated 2013)]

Posted in Ballet, Bastien Vivés, Constellation Records, Dance, Foreign Books, Graphic Novel, Joy Division, Polly McLean, Slint, Sofa, Transgender on April 14, 2014| Leave a Comment »

polinaSOUNDTRACK: SOFA-Grey [CST002] (1997).

greyIt’s not nice to compare bands to other bands, because it seems like they are copying the original. But since I just mentioned Slint the other day, I thought it worthwhile to mention Sofa today. They have similar sensibilities—noisy guitars, spoken/screamed vocals and a decidedly quiet feel.

I love the way this disc opens with the song “On/Off”—it has a simple bass with syncopated drums. And then the buizziest buzz saw guitar thrown in counterpoint notes. And then the singer comes in, sounding like Joy Division never went away.  The song builds into a cool noise and then backs off again. But song two, “CH. 2 Chi.” changes everything—a blistering punk song with super fast chaotic drums and fast vocals. The guitars are again punctuating rather than keeping melody. And when it plays the two high chords it adds incredible tension. “Monotone” begins a simple song of two notes (and some great noisy guitars). The vocals are less Joy Divison and more spoken punk. But each verse adds something new to the music, which gets more complex. “Current” has a more conventional post-rock sound—buzzy guitars and quiet vocals. It’s a good calming moment.

“80 000” has a slow menacing vibe. It builds a few times into some really noisy chaotic sections, where the guitars are willfully out of tune—and all the while the spoken word lyrics are quiet enough to make you lean in closer. “Red Lake” is another slow number (they could maybe have used a faster one by this point), but I really like the riff and the way the guitars play off of it. And there’s an actual hummable chorus too.

The fast noise comes back on “Comma” with a frenetic guitar line and pummeling bass. Even the stop/start of the chorus are frenetic. And when the song occasionally slows down, the guitars still punctuate with astonishing noise. “The Fence” opens with a cool bass riff and simple but interesting drums. “Travel” is a slow song that opens with just guitar notes and spoken/sung lyrics. I don’t care for these more atmospheric songs (especially when they push 6 minutes) but the band does it well. “Stress” follows this. This is the shortest song on the disc just under 3 minutes of furious mayhem. “Medicine Hat” ends the disc with another slower song, but this one has a lot of interesting components, like the bass and guitar line that interweaves throughout the song.

This was Constellation Records second release (Ian, who plays guitar, co-founded Constellation).  Sofa broke up around the time of this release, which is a shame as it was a good one. I’d like to hear more from them (they have some earlier records with unknown availability).

[READ: April 5, 2014] Polina

This was a simple and enjoyable graphic novel about a young ballerina who grows up in the world of ballet.  (I admit I was attracted to the title because I thought it might be about Olympic figure skater Polina Edmunds who I remembered primarily because the name Polina which was unusual to me–it is not about her).

It is a bout a fictional ballet dancer.  When we first meet young Polina, she looks so tiny in the back seat of the car as she is driven to class.  And her teacher, Mr Bojinsky looks like such a large man next to her–with his full beard and large hands.  He is an intimidating figure and all of the girls are afraid of him.  And yet, it is an honor to be even considered by him.

So when Polina unexpectedly gets chosen for his class, she is elated and fearful at the same time.  At first Bojinsky seems really mean and the way his hand more or less covers her whole chest as he gets her into place portended all kinds of things.  But rest assured, and perhaps this is a spoiler, but if is, it is one that I would like to know–nothing bad like that happens to Polina.  Phew. She is not molested, or raped or left dying in an alley. It’s not that kind of story.  Rather, it is the story of a young girl trying to make it as a dancer. (more…)

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Hard Art DC 1979 (2013)

Posted in Alec MacKaye, Bad Brains, Books about music, Brick Bats, D.O.A., Dischord Records, Faith, Fugazi, Henry Rollins, Ignition, Lucien Perkins, Minor Threat, Photo Essays, Punks, The Slickee Boys, The Teen Idles, The Untouchables, The Warmers, The Washington Post, Trenchmouth (DC), Tru Fax on August 22, 2013| Leave a Comment »

hardartSOUNDTRACK: THE TEEN IDLES-Minor Disturbance (1981).

minorThe Teen Idles were the first band released on Ian MacKaye’s Dischord Records.  And this EP was record 001 (MacKaye was in the band and he made his own label to release the record).

There are eight songs, done in a total of 9 minutes and 20 seconds.  The final song is a live track and it reaches 2 minutes mostly because of the introduction and crowd noise.  Three songs almost reach 90 seconds long.  The rest are under 1 minute.

Interestingly, there are earlier demos of these songs that are a little slower and a little less fastinyourfacescreamedlyricswhat???  Perhaps because I’m old I like the slower ones a little better, but I know that this represents the core of DC Hardcore and I respect that.  And you can actually make out the lyrics if you try.

Some themes include being too young to go to shows, people trying to grow old too fast, punk music (“you say we need practice, maybe in a couple of years”), and apparently dissing British punk for selling out. (“There goes your fury out the door, don’t expect our respect anymore”).

The acerbic “Deadhead” even has a slow section (but is still overall less than 90 seconds) in which they parody the Grateful Dead—the song is anti-Dead primarily because of the drugs they espoused (The Teen Idles, like Minor Threat were straight edge).  I had to look up Fiorucci to see what “Fiorucci Nightmare” was about (it’s a fashion house).

For an early taste of the DC Hardcore scene, it pretty much starts here.

[READ: August 22, 2013] Hard Art DC 1979

Do you like punk rock?  Punk rock from the late 70s? Specifically bands from Washington DC? In particular bands that played at three venues?  On four specific dates?  That’s the focus of this book.

This is a collection of photographs by Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Lucien Perkins.  Perkins has been taking pictures for decades, primarily for The Washington Post—covering major events in Russia, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan and, in the late 70s, a few DC punk shows.

The book doesn’t say anything about his motive for doing these shows—other than that he was new to the scene and thought it looked interesting.  And since Bad Brains are the focus of most of the pictures, I’m certain that race and racism had something to do with his showing up at these events.  Especially because the first event was called Rock Against Racism and was held in a public housing area of Washington D.C. (more…)

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The Art of McSweeney’s by the Editors of McSweeney’s (2009)

Posted in Arthur Bradford, Big Books, Bob Mould, Books about music, Books about writers, Charles Burns, Chris Ware, Corporate skewering, Dave Eggers, David Byrne, Eli Horowitz, Essays, Funky Web Sites, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), John Hodgman, Lawrence Krauser, LGBTQ, McSweeney's, Michael Chabon, Military, Millard Kaufman, Oddities, Peter Garfield, Political Humor, Post Office, Pranks, Record Labels, Sarah Vowell, Sugar, The Believer, The Who, TSA, Wholphin, William T. Vollmann on May 17, 2013| Leave a Comment »

artofmcSOUNDTRACK: SUGAR-“Helpless” single (1992).

helplessI loved that first Sugar album and even bought the single for “Helpless” (back then singles were ways for record labels to get more money out of fans of a band rather than for people to pay for one song).  In addition to “Helpless,” the single contains three songs.  “Needle Hits E” is a poppy song–very Mould, very Sugar.  The song is a bright and vibrant addition and would fit nicely on Copper Blue.

The second track is an acoustic version of “If I Can’t Change Your Mind” which sounds wonderful.  Mould really knows how to record a 12 string guitar to make it sound huge.  “Try Again” is the final track.  It reminds me of The Who, especially the bass line at the end of each verse.  It’s a darker song (especially for his single which is so up).  But I love the way the acoustic guitar seems to make it build and build.  Then, some time around the two and a half minute mark, a feedback squall starts building.  It’s way in the background (and actually sounds a bit like squealing balloons).  It continues until the last thirty seconds just degenerate into full blown feedback noise–just so you know Sugar aren’t all pop sweetness.  All three songs were later released on Sugar’s Besides collection.

[READ: May 10, 2013] The Art of McSweeney’s

Sarah got this book for me for my birthday and I devoured it.  It answers every question I’ve had about McSweeney’s and many more that I didn’t.  It provides behind the scenes information, previously unseen pieces and all kinds of interviews with the authors and creators of the issues as well as The Believer, Wholphin and some of the novels.

The real treasure troves come from the earliest issues, when there was very little information available about the journal.  So there’s some great stories about how those early covers were designed (ostensibly the book is about the artwork, but it talks about a lot more), how the content was acquired and how the books were publicized (book parties where Arthur Bradford smashed his guitar after singing songs!).

The cover of the book has a very elaborate series of very short stories by Eggers (these same stories appeared on the inside cover of McSweeney’s 23).  For reasons I’m unclear about, the rings of stories have been rotated somewhat so it is does not look exactly the same–although the stories are the same.  The inside photo of the book also gives the origin of the phrase “Impossible, you say? Nothing is impossible when you work for the circus.”

The opening pages show the original letters that Dave Eggers sent out to various writers seeking stories and ideas that were rejected by other publications (and interesting idea for a journal). (more…)

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Five Dials Number 27B: Pedagogic Poems (27 April 2013)

Posted in Advice, Babies, Books about writers, Death, Emily Berry, Five Dials, Hannah Bagshaw, Heather Phillipson, Huh?, James Brookes, Joe Prendergast, Kyle Platts, Luke Kennard, Nathan Hamilton, Oli Hazzard, Olly Todd, Poetry, Poets, Record Labels, Sam Buchan-Watts, Sophia Augusta, Tim Cockburn on April 29, 2013| Leave a Comment »

fivedials_no27b

SOUNDTRACK:  FREEGAL MUSIC (2013).

freegalNot only am I a librarian, I’m also a patron of libraries (we currently use four!).  I’m also a huge advocate of library usage.  Everyone knows you can get free books at the library.  And many people know (but many people don’t) that you can get free CDs and DVDs from the library.  Well, I’m advocating a new service that many libraries have implemented (both the library where I worked and my local library have it).

It’s called Freegal and it allows you to download (and keep) three songs a week.  The selection is quite impressive, as they have made agreements with 10,000 record labels.  That’s 10,000 LABELS, not artists, so huge numbers of songs are available. I did a few random searches and was delighted by how much was there.

Even their genre divisions are impressive.  Just check out this sample selection from the B’s: BeBop Big Band Black Metal Bluegrass Blues Bolero Bollywood Brasil Soul Brazilian Breakbeat BritPop Broadway.

So check out to see if your library subscribes.   You get three free songs every Monday morning!  Not bad for the price of a free library card.

[READ: July 3, 3011] Five Dials Number 27B

I haven’t posted about a Five Dials in a couple of issues, primarily because I find writing about anthologies is very time consuming (I have recently read three McSweeney’s which I haven’t had the time to edit together into posts).  The good news is that I have only missed two issues, but I know that at least one of them is pretty large.  I was a little bummed to see another new one already, but then I saw that this issue was not only short, it was full of poetry.  And, since this is my poetry month, why not end the month with a little more poetry.

I enjoyed the offputting cartoon on the cover of this issue which is creepy and funny at the same time.  (Illustrations are by Sophia Augusta, Hannah Bagshaw, Kyle Platts, Tom Rees and Joe Prendergast.  I assume Augusta did the cover).

There was no letter from the editor or any of the usual suspects in this issue.  Rather this issue opens with a Letter from the Poetry Editor.  It is shaped like a poem but isn’t one.

SAM BUCHAN-WATTS-On Parenting Poems
Mentioning a 1954 parenting guide (from Elizabeth Longfellow), Buchan-Watts says that they asked eight young poets to choose a chapter heading from Longfellow’s book Points for Parents, and to make a poem starting from that title.

And it’s now that I admit that these poems have set me back terribly in my appreciation of poetry which I have been nurturing all month.  If ever there was a collection of seemingly random words, it is these. (more…)

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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle–A Study in Scarlet (1886)

Posted in Adventure, Constellation Records, Culture Shock, Death, Elementary, Eric Chenaux, Religion, Sherlock, Short Books, Violence on February 21, 2013| Leave a Comment »

scarletSOUNDTRACK: ERIC CHENAUX-Guitar & Voice [CST088] (2012).

chenauxThis album is indeed just guitar & voice.  Chenaux is a performer who grows on me.  His music is incredibly slow and drawn out.  And I often find that his vocal melodies don’t always have much to do with the guitar parts he plays.  It feels like everything is improv.  And it’s unsettling at first.  As is the fact that half the songs are pretty ethereal songs with words and the other half is wild and chaotic guitar solos, in which the guitars sound like anything but guitars.

But when you actually listen to the lyrics (which aren’t always easy to follow, he sings them so languidly) they’re quite lovely.  Like, “With the clouds in the sky and the bags under my eyes I wrote your name a thousand times with an old flashlight last night.”  But the more notable thing is the guitar work.  In “Amazing Backgrounds,” he plays a simple, plucked acoustic guitar but the solo is a crazy electric guitar that is played backwards and sounds completely from outer space.  “Dull Lights (White or Grey)” is another beautiful piece with overdubbed guitars playing some great low bass sections while the other guitar plays pretty, high notes (an a cool wah wahed section too).

“Put in Music” sounds the most traditional–the vocal melody is pretty straightforward and his vocal actually has weight (it’s usually up in the ether somewhere).  And I think it works very well as a grounding for the album.  Although the guitar solo sounds like he’s playing more with the tuning pegs rather than bending the strings–it’s cool and disconcerting at the same time.  “However Wildly We Dream” is a very jazzy feeling song–upbeat finger plucking.  It’s the most conventional song and it really packs a wallop (a gentle, airy wallop but a wallop nonetheless).

The second track “Simple/Frontal” is an instrumental.  I assume it is all guitar but it sounds like slightly discordant violins playing against each other.  “Sliabh Aughty” is a nearly nine minute solo that sounds reversed and is a wild meandering piece (played over a constant drone).  It has an Irish feel, which makes sense as the Slieve Aughty (Irish: Sliabh Eachtaí) are a mountain range in the western part of Ireland.  “Le Nouveau Favori” is a short instrumental–two minutes with what sounds again like a bowed violin/drone.  And how can one not enjoy a piece called “Genitalia Domestique” another 2 minute droney instrumental. Chenaux definitely plays with sounds that don’t quite go together, often making an eerie collection of tunes.  Especially when they are compared against the pretty acoustic of the songs with words.

The final track is “Glitzing for Stephen Parkinson” and it continues with that weird bagpipe/organ drone that he pulls out of his guitar (I’d love to see him perform this stuff live–although how would he do the overdubs?)

The stuff takes a  few listens to get used to, and it’s certainly not for everyone, but the sounds he gets out of a guitar is truly amazing.

[READ: February 16, 2013] A Study in Scarlet

I mentioned recently that we have been watching a lot of Sherlock Holmes items.  So it seemed appropriate to read some of his stories as well.  I brought home a collection of the short stories not realizing that there were two novels written before the stories.  Sarah read the stories, but I held out for the debut novel.

The show Sherlock laid an amazing ground work for the books because the show (despite being set over 125 years after the books) is quite faithful to the stories.  Indeed, the way that Holmes and Watson meet is pretty much straight out of the book.  And, also indeed, the first episode took much of the story form this first book.  There were some very key changes to the story, ones that made the show very very different in the end, but the foundation is certainly there.  Interestingly, the way the murder is performed in the book (which we learn very very late in the story) proves to be the same methodology used in a different episode of Sherlock.  Two episodes from one book!

So in this book Watson opens it by giving a little backstory about himself and his quest to find cheap lodging in London (he’s back from the war in Afghanistan–a fascinating coincidence in terms of timeliness of wars) and he has blown through a lot of his stipend.  A mutual friend introduces Watson to Holmes and they agree to live together   I was a little concerned about the pace of the book at first, as it seemed like Watson was going to go into a lot about himself–but he doesn’t.  It’s a brief chapter that gets all the details out of the way.

Then we meet Holmes.  He explains his own eccentricities and how he is a consulting detective (Watson wondered why these people kept appearing and asking Hiolmes questions about who knew what).  And then finally we (the reader and Watson) are invited into a case.  A man was found murdered in a house.  There were no stab wounds, although there was blood.  The only other evidence was a word scratched in blood on the wall: Rache.

If you saw Sherlock this will sound familiar (except that the victim was a woman).  It deviates quite a bit from here (Rache is used in a very different way from the show, which I really liked), but Holmes recognizes the tobacco and is able to deduce a ton of things just from the surroundings.  He doesn’t tell the police right away, for fear that if the criminal knows the police know about him, he will flee).  And as the first half of the book draws to a close, the murderer is apprehended.

Imagine my surprise though when the next chapter opens up in the American Southwest.  All of a sudden the story has shifted utterly to a man and a girl trudging through the mountains,  lacking food and water and clearly near death   What?   (more…)

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César Aira–The Seamstress and the Wind (1994) [translated 2011]

Posted in Adventure, Books about writers, Canadian Music, César Aira, Constellation Records, Elfin Saddle, Fables, Fantasy, Foreign Books, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Poker, Rosalie Knecht, Short Books, Supernatural, Surreal, Translation, Travel on January 15, 2013| Leave a Comment »

seamSOUNDTRACK: ELFIN SADDLE-Devastates [CST087] (2012).

elfinElfin Saddle continues their streak of oddly juxtaposed music that works very well.   The band specializes in a kind of Middle Eastern folk music (there’s a lot of Jewish-style singing), but with Emi Honda singing Japanese-style vocals it really alters the overall sound.  They also use a lot of raw sounding “instruments” many of which are found or quite simply, junk.  Check out the instrumentation list: Jordan McKenzie: voice, guitar, half-accordion, drums, varied percussion, membrane pipes, organs, piano, pvc processing, tapes, phonographs, speakers, etc.  Emi Honda: voice, ukulele, drums, half-accordion, musical saw, extra percussion.  It’s that extra percussion and etc. that you hear a lot, rattling around in the background of these songs.

They play complex rhythms (with lots of low end drumming) underneath ethereal noises (music boxes and the like).  And all the while, Honda and McKenzie trade off their unusual vocals.  It’s mesmerizing.  When the band really starts rocking, like in “The Changing Wind” you hear how well it all works together, and how well the two play off each other.  The slower pieces, like “Boats” are very cinematic, probably because everything sounds so real–you can see the items that are making these odd sounds.

The music is definitely not pop, but with just a listen or two, you can really appreciate what they’re doing.  If you like your folk a little noisy or your rock a little experimental, this is a great record to check out.

[READ: January 13, 2013] The Seamstress and the Wind

Things that I have said about every book of Aira’s that I have read: they are all short, he writes a lot of books (according to Wikipedia he has written at least 45 books since this one came out about twenty years ago), and they are all nonlinear.

And so it is with this 130 page book.

As the book opens, a young boy named César Aira is playing with his friend in the back of their neighbor Chiquito’s truck.  They are playing a game of ghosts when suddenly, César finds himself walking in a trance back to his house.  Turns out his friend Omar couldn’t find him for hours (and when César snaps out of it, indeed hours have passed).  And yet, despite this story, it turns out that really Omar is missing (what? who knows?).  Omar is the son of the local seamstress, Delia Siffoni.  She is sewing a wedding dress for the art teacher, Silvia, who is (scandalously) pregnant.  When she hears that her son is missing, she freaks out and calls out a search party.

She concludes that Omar was hiding in Chiquito’s truck when he left for Patagonia.  So she takes a taxi to chase after Chiquito.  Since the dress is due to be finished right away, she takes it and her supplies with her in hopes of finishing it on the road.  When Ramón, Delia’s husband realizes what she has done, he chases after her.  And when Silvia realizes that her dress is driving away in a taxi she follows Ramón.  And so it becomes a road novel in which none of the characters are together.

By the end of the story there has been a terrible accident with a taxi crashing into a truck.  There has been a poker game where one of the two women has been lost in a bet (unbeknownst to her) and we have met The Wind (Sir Ventarrón) who helps the seamstress with her problems.  Indeed, Sir Ventarrón becomes an integral part of the story, including a flashback when Sir Ventarrón assisted a snowman in his quest for eternal life (yes). (more…)

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Eudora Welty–“Why I Live at the P.O.” (Atlantic Monthly, April 1941)

Posted in Atlantic, Constellation Records, Eudora Welty, Pat Jordache, Post Office, Short Story, South, The Jerk, Unreliable narrator on January 9, 2013| Leave a Comment »

weltySOUNDTRACK: PAT JORDACHE-“Radio Generation”/”Radar” [CST074] (2010).

jordache“Radio Generation” appeared on Jordache’s album Future Songs in 2011.  This 7″ single has an otherwise unreleased B-side called “Radar” as well.

I think of “Radio Generation” as an unusual “single from the album because, as I wrote of the CD: It opens with “Radio Generation,” which has a really cool bouncy guitar riff and bassline.  It doesn’t quite display the signature sound that I think of this album as having but it certainly points to it.

“Radar” has even less of the Future Songs feel.  It is very sparse, with guitars that sound almost like a Western.  The vocals are slow and drawn out and then the spoken word section begins–continuing the meandering nature of the song.  The melody is pretty, but this is justifiably a B-side.

[READ: January 7, 2012] “Why I Live at the P.O.”

I read about this story in the D.T. Max David Foster Wallace biography.  I’d never read anything by Welty before, and I have no idea if this story is representative of her work.

There’s not a lot of plot to the story, which is probably why it is so successful.  Welty constructs a very funny home scenario (one that I actually had a hard time understanding at first because the names of the characters are rather odd–although perhaps not odd to Southerners?)  I had to read the first sentence a few times before I could really parse it.  It’s not complicated but the names and the dialect are…odd.

I WAS GETTING ALONG FINE with Mama, Papa-Daddy and Uncle Rondo until my sister Stella-Rondo just separated from her husband and came back home again. Mr. Whitaker!

The narrator is Sister, the older and much aggrieved sister of Stella-Rondo.  As the opening says, Stella-Rondo has moved back home.  And she has arrived with a baby (which she swears is not hers).  Sister is put out by the intrusion because she says that Stella-Rondo has always gotten everything she wanted (unlike Sister).  We have no direct proof of that although, if Sister’s telling of this story is to be believed, Stella-Rondo is a major instigator  trying to get Sister in trouble as soon as she returns.  Of course, Sister also tries to get Stella-Rondo in trouble, but her parents don’t seems swayed by her complaints. (more…)

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Elfin Saddle–Wurld [DVD] (2010)

Posted in Art, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Constellation Records, Elfin Saddle, Environmentalism on November 24, 2012| Leave a Comment »

[WATCHED: 2011 and November 24, 2012] Wurld [CST069] (2010).

Wurld is an art installation.  It was created by Emi Honda and Jordan McKenzie, the co-founders of Elfin Saddle.   As the Constellation Records website explains it:

Wurld is a year-long installation piece constructed, tended and developed in their Montreal apartment, using stop-motion video to document the evolution of the sculptural elements of the work as well as to enact various animated sequences as part of a larger narrative arc for the piece. The resulting 23 minute film Wurld premiered at the Vienna Film Festival in 2009.

The film is indeed, a stop motion film of the daily growth of the plant life in the garden.  It’s got several awesome sequences where you can watch the vines spin around looking for something to grab onto.  But beyond that, they have also created an entire world in this little world.  Things move along train tracks, smoke (cotton) comes out of chimneys, objects exit caves and construct sculptures of themselves.  There’s even an occasional live snail (how did they get it to go where they wanted?  It’s very cool.

Accompanying the video is a soundtrack by Elfin Saddle.  Elfin Saddle plays a kind of world music–accordion, bells, bowed saws and Japanese-style melodies from Honda.  Although in the case of the soundtrack, there are no vocals, and the music is much more soundtracky–not really any style, just a kind of ambient soundscape.  Some of the music is very dark, which comes across especially with some of the found instrumentation (the percussion sounds more like found metal than cymbals or bells).  And some of the other percussive sounds seem to be more like blocks of found wood.  It’s interesting that the music by itself is kind of dark since the video is not dark at all, it is filled with wonder and delight.  Until the end bit which is very mechanized and seems to show a definite downturn in the society of their world.

The DVD comes with a whole bunch of extras: (more…)

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Peter Stamm–“Sweet Dreams” (New Yorker, May 14, 2012)

Posted in Arcade Fire, Canadian Music, Constellation Records, Death, Fears, Mercury Rev, Michael Hofmann, New Yorker, Peter Stamm, Short Story, Siskiyou, Translation on May 29, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SISKIYOU-Keep Away the Dead [CST083] (2011).

I really enjoyed Siskiyou’s first album. This album updates the sound and makes it a bit bigger.  And yet somehow the album still sounds fragile.

The album is full of songs that are catchy, but not really easy on the ear.

The first song reminds me of Arcade Fire.  Something about the ringing guitar and crescendos.  But the recording feels more like a demo, much more intimate that Arcade Fire.  “Where Does That Leave Me” is an even more spare number, just vocals and guitar although it slowly builds.  “Twigs and Stones” is the first song that sounds like the bulk of the album—where Colin Huebert’s vocals really come to the fore.  His vocal style is loud and verging on the whiny (again, like Arcade Fire).  This song also has a lot of other instruments that percolate to the top—reminding me of older Mercury Rev.

“Revolution Blues” is the standout track for me, it’s incredibly catchy (and fun to try to sing in his eccentric voice).  The accordion and the minor key intensity is really powerful.  I guess it’s a shame that it was written by Neil Young, then (although the Siskiyou version is much better).  “Dear Old Friend” is a more country sound (which for me is shorthand for slide guitars), but it keeps the same style and feel as the other songs.  “Fiery Death” is the first song where percussion makes itself known very loudly.  It’s a cool introduction of loud thumping.  “Sing Me to Sleep” is a 2 minute lullaby and “Dead Right Now” is a 2 minute coda that ends the album nicely.

The disc is short (about 30 minutes) but a lot of emotion and craft is packed into it.  It’s really enjoyable.

[READ: May 24, 2012] “Sweet Dreams”

I’m always disconcerted when a story is in English but is set in another country.  Well, that’s not exactly right.  When it seems like it’s set in another country because the author is from that other country and he or she is writing about that other country without specifying it (usually because it is translated).  It’s very Amerocentric, but perhaps everyone thinks a story is set in their town unless told otherwise.  So I didn’t realize that this story was originally written in German (it was translated by Michael Hoffman), but it felt like it was taking place in Europe.  I actually guessed France, until later on it was revealed to be Switzerland.

There’s something cool about stories that are written elsewhere, especially if you don’t know the place well, it allows for almost anything to happen.  A couple riding a bus in Europe doesn’t mean the same thing as a couple riding a bus in, say Tallahassee.  But having set up that distinction, this story is about love.  And love is universal.

The story is written from the point of view of Lara, a shy bank worker.  She has been dating Simon for several months and they have recently moved in together.  They should be in the first bloom of love—on their own for the first  time (they never felt comfortable fooling around at their parents’ houses)—but her shyness in particular won’t loosen.  She doesn’t like him to see her naked, and they are very reserved in their love-making.  And from the start Stamm places a dark tone over the story.  The get a place in the town that he likes but it’s pretty run down.  He hadn’t brought much to the apartment, and he seems critical of some of her purchases.  He even comments that “forever is a long time” when she says that the towels she bought will last forever.  And then on the bus, a man, dressed in a long black coat stares at Lara over and over.  It may be innocent, but it’s still disconcerting.

When they get home, she takes a bath (she won’t let him in the bathroom) and asks him to go to the restaurant downstairs to buy a bottle of wine.  She finishes the bath and he’s not back yet, so she reads the paper.  Which is full of more grim news.  When she reads about a dead body found in the lake nearby and since we know she doesn’t feel comfortable about the restaurant downstairs, we know something bad has happened. (more…)

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Jonathan Safran Foer–“About the Typefaces Not Used in This Edition” (The Guardian, 07.12.02)

Posted in Colin Stetson, Constellation Records, Fonts, Jonathan Safran Foer, Rivka Galchen, Short Story, The Guardian on May 28, 2012| 3 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: COLIN STETSON-Those Who Didn’t Run (10″ vinyl) [CST084] (2011).

This 10″ vinyl contains two more of Stetson’s amazing bass saxophone solo monstrosities.  Each is over ten minutes.  And while ten minutes can be a bit much to take for one of these songs, the music is so powerful and so jaw dropping to listen to that, frankly he could play for days (and maybe he actually could) and I’d enjoy it.

The amusing thing about this 10″ is that when I played it on my record player, I didn’t know what speed to play it at.  And, since the whole platter is full of bass saxophone blasts, and all of the percussion is clacking from the saxophone, I honestly couldn’t tell what speed it was supposed  to be played at.  It wasn’t like a song with vocals or anything.  And the first song I played was the B Side “The end of your suffering ” which is played on a low alto sax–meaning it’s higher than his usual stuff, so the 33RPM actually sounded like it might be right!

After knowing the proper sound (you can stream the music here), it’s funny to hear the slow version–which just sounds meaner and angrier (especially around the 6 minuite mark of “Those Who Didn’t Run,” when he’s really hitting some crazy notes.  But I was so intrigued by the slow version that I went back and listened to both sides at the slow speed, just for fun.  In the dark.  By myself.

[READ:May 22, 2012] “About the Typefaces Not Used in This Edition”

This seemed like a perfect piece to put next to Rivka Galchen’s piece about the future of paper.  This is listed as a short story, and in a way it is, although not in any conventional sense.  This was published in 2002, long before Safran Foer’s book of cut up text, Tree of Codes was even conceived, so it’s obvious that he has been interested in type, in the way words play off of each other, in the way words appear on the page for quite some time.

This short piece (two pages) discusses the eight fonts that the editor chose not to use for publishing “this book.”  I don’t know if this references a specific book or not, although he does include character names and broad concepts from “the book”: Henry, Elena, an unsafe wooden bridge, the last word is “free,” and many times the words, “I love you.”

The typefaces are: (more…)

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