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Archive for the ‘Short Story’ Category

Annie Proulx–“A Resolute Man” (New Yorker, March 21, 2016)

Posted in Annie Proulx, Death, LGBTQ, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, PWR BTTM, Romance, Sex, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence on June 3, 2016| Leave a Comment »

march 21 SOUNDTRACK: PWR BTTM-Tiny Desk Concert #519 (April 4, 2016).

pwrbttmPWR BTTM are the most fun Tiny Desk concert to come along in a long time.  They are a two person—drums and guitar only–queercore band.  The two guys are Ben Hopkins and Liv Bruce.  They are punky and brash and a lot of fun.

Ben plays guitar for the first three songs and they switch off lead vocals.

“Ugly Cherries” opens with an excellent, complex guitar riff played on a very distorted acoustic guitar.  I love that that complicated riff runs through the song and ends with an awesome harmonic’d note.  It’s two minutes of pop punk fun.  And the opening lyrics sets the tone for the song (and the band):  “My girl gets scared, can’t take him anywhere.”

Between songs Ben and Liv are full of jokes and chatter.  Liv says “This is my favorite show that we’ve ever done…its cool to be someone’s lunch break.”

For “Dairy Queen,” Ben switches guitars.  He has an electric guitar this time and Liv sings lead.  Interestingly, this guitar is less distorted than the acoustic.  This is a funny song with the refrain of “right now I’m in the shower.”  There are lots of ideas about things they could do if he wasn’t in the shower like “We can go to Disneyworld and fuck shit up,” At the end of the song Liv moans that he had planned to change Disneyworld to NPR because it is the same syllables, but he forgot.

“Nu 1” returns Ben to lead vocals.  It is a slower song with a simpler guitar riff.  Although once the chorus comes in it’s loud and brash with backing vocals from Liv.  The opening line “God damn everyone’s dumb” is pretty great.  The end of the song has a guitar riff that is similar to the first song, but played in a very different style.

For the final song “C U Around” they switch places with Liv moving to guitar and lead vocals.  As Ben heads to the drums Bob comments on his nail polish and Ben looks over and says “Bob… up here” pointing to his eyes.  While everyone is laughing and Liv is tuning, Ben says

When I was 15 and didn’t think a queer person could ever be in a band….  I  never thought I’d get to throw shade at Bob Boilen.  This is my biggest dream come true.

Then Ben asks how is Liv doing up there and Liv shouts “Guitars are hard!” His guitar playing is very different–more strumming than Ben’s manic style.  The song is slow with a plucked guitar riff and I like the way near the end he starts strumming really hard and gets a cool fuzzed out bass guitar tone while retaining the regular sound of the guitar’s high end.

As you can see from the photo, PWR BTTM dress outlandishly.  Ben is in a bright red dress with sparkly nail polish and really garish facial makeup (with his beard showing through) and swim goggles on his forehead.  Liv is a bit more subdued although when he steps to the front mic you can see that his lipstick is really quite striking.  A few months back Bob said they put on his favorite live show.  If I loved the fifteen minutes of this one I can only imagine how great a 90 minute extravaganza of PWR BTTM would be like.

[READ: March 25, 2016] “A Resolute Man”

Since I’ve read a few pieces by Proulx recently I felt like I knew her M.O.: bad things happen to people who seem innocent, but might not be–usually by strangely named people.  And all set a long time ago.

This one is not far from that description, although it does change things somewhat.  And I enjoyed it a lot more.

I found the beginning to be a little slow going (but that may be because I was anticipating a long slog).  We learn about Captain James Duke.  And this time I marveled at Proulx’s descriptive sentences; “Duke, at fifty, was complicated, dark-haired, and somewhat handsome”.  That’s a lot of things in a few words.  We learn about Duke’s history and then we learn that he has inherited a parcel of land in Boston (he currently lives in England). (more…)

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Ann Beattie-“For the Best” (New Yorker, March 14, 2016)

Posted in Ane Brun, Ann Beattie, Hillary Clinton, Interiors, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert, Woody Allen on June 2, 2016| Leave a Comment »

314SOUNDTRACK: ANE BRUN-Tiny Desk Concert #518 (April 1, 2016).

aneAne Brun is a Norwegian singer who is currently based in Sweden.  She plays piano and guitar and has a pretty voice which reaches high notes but maintains a kind of rough rasp.  She says she had a terrible cold and this is her first day of singing.  She doesn’t trust her voice yet and she thanks everyone for being so quiet.

The three songs she sings are slow (a little too slow for my tastes).  The blurb says that these are the three slower songs on the album, so maybe I’d like them a bit more amid the other songs  This is not to say the songs are bad, just a little too mellow.

Having said that, the melody and vocal lines of “Still Waters’ are beautiful.  This is the one song she plays on the piano and it does sound rather different from the other two.

For “All We Want is Love” (which she describes as the ultimate love song, kind of), she plays a pretty, picked melody on the acoustic guitar.  But its clear that her voice is the main instrument here–and she hits some lovely notes in the repeated refrain of “All we want is love.”

“Signing Off” is the last track on the album.  It is a slow guitar song. The melody isn’t as immediate as the previous song, but her voice really does carry the tune nicely.  I wonder if her voice normally sounds like this or if the cold impacted her singing.

[READ: March 14, 2016] “For the Best”

I wasn’t that inspired by the previous story of Beattie’s that I read.  And I didn’t really love this one either.  I found it very slow going.

The story is about a man named Gerald, an older divorced man, who gets invited to a party.  His ex-wife, whom he has not seen in some thirty years will also be invited.

But the way this was revealed was kind of circuitous, I thought.

the Clavells weren’t the sort to play pranks, so the printed invitation to their annual Christmas party arrived after what Gerald and Charlotte’s son, Timothy, would call a “heads-up,” sent by e-mail, letting them know that both were invited to the event, at the Clavells’ apartment, on West Fifty-sixth Street. Gerald hadn’t seen Charlotte since their divorce, thirty-one years before, and this was the first time he’d seen her e-mail address. Whether she was on any social media he wouldn’t know, as he was not.

I enjoyed some of the oddly phrased ways the story was revealed (like that last sentence), but it took me a few tries to puzzle out if Gerald was the recipient or the sender oft he invite.  It’s a long first sentence, I guess.

I also enjoyed this follow-up sentence: “It was a rather jaunty message from the Clavells, who were not jaunty people.”  But I think that reading so much of the story like this is exhausting. (more…)

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O. Henry–“Confessions of a Humorist” (1917)

Posted in Black 47, Books about writers, Eddie Campbell, Funny (ha ha), Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, O. Henry, Regrets, Short Story, Silver Mt. Zion, Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra on June 1, 2016| Leave a Comment »

henrySOUNDTRACK: THEE SILVER MT. ZION MEMORIAL ORCHESTRA-Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light on Everything [CST099] (2014).

99Aside from the dance remix single of “Hang on to Each Other,” this is the latest Silver Mt. Zion record to be released.  For those keeping score, GYBE has released an album more recently than SMtZ.  This album is full of punk piss and vinegar (as if the title didn’t give it away).  It’s mostly represented by a heavily fuzzed out guitar that runs underneath nearly all of the songs.

The album begins with a child saying, “We live on the island of Montreal … and we make a lot of noise … because we love each other.”

This first song is called “Fuck Off Get Free (For the Island of Montreal)” and the music starts with scratching noisy guitars and everyone else playing a simple ascending and descending riff.  The vocals kick in right away and it feels like the whole group is singing along too–everyone is involved in this noisy song.  It works great.  Even when the song shifts to a more singable part it retains the intensity of the pacing.  Around 4 minutes we get a return to the chanted vocals that lead into a kind of hurricane of a solo section.  And when they come out of that the chorus sings the chanted title.  The biggest change comes at 6 and a half minutes when the whole song shifts and a slower, heavier and deeper guitar chord (unlike any they have played before–it feels unearthly) drives the remainder of the song.  As I’ve noted in other songs, I love when the choir sings by itself (the female singers in this case singing “pull me under”), and they all sound much more “professional” than the kind of loose choir they were a few albums ago.  This choir sings to the end of the song as the instruments all drop off leaving only voices.  It’s pretty fantastic.

“Austerity Blues” is 14 minutes long and opens with a flat sounding scratched acoustic guitar and sing along vocals.  While the scratching  guitar is going on a cool bass line begins.  Things quiet down which leads to a noisy one-note distorted guitar that adds a layer of noise to the melody line.  The song shifts to a louder section with scratchy violins and big pounding drums (David Payant has really added a lot to these songs with his powerful drumming).  Around 6 minutes in, a distorted echoing guitar plays a kind of Middle Eastern-sounding guitar solo.  When the solo settles down a new faster section begins–lots of drums and group singing.  By ten minutes, the song feels like it’s fading out as the music gets quieter.  But a new set of vocals resume more quietly this time, and they sing their melodies quietly until the end.

“Take Away These Early Grave Blues” opens with a girl with a very thick British accent wondering why “people think like that” as a noisy violin kicks in with a see-saw riff and shouted vocals.  This song sounds like a pretty standard SMtZ song with the big exception being the really noisy drums that dominate the track (Payant again).  At around 2 minutes, the music drops away leaving just a buzzy bass introducing a noisy drum and guitar solo.  When the vocals resume the music becomes a fast pounding drum fill and more distorted violins and guitars.  The song is intense and while only about 7 minutes long, it really packs a lot in.  It ends with a fast riff (that’s almost an Irish jig) followed by crashing drums and chanting lyrics: “Love each other that’s all.”

“Little Ones Run” is only two and half minutes long.  That’s unusual in itself for the band.  But even more unusual is that the song is like a lullaby.  It’s a quiet piano melody and lyrics sung by the female members of the band.  It hearkens back to their first albums which were all piano, but this is a much updated version of that early sound.

“What We Loved Was Not Enough” opens with quiet violins and deep bass notes.  The relative quiet is shattered by Efrim singing (this is the first instance on this album where his polarizing voice stands out–on the rest of the album it’s pretty well mixed in with everything else.  But I think he’s won us over by this time and we can accept it, especially since the musical melody is so pretty.  There’s also a lovely violin solo that runs through the middle of the song.  In fact, the whole song would be really quite pretty except for the distortion that permeates it–a noisy guitar underpins the whole thing.  But at 6 minutes, everything drops out except for the pretty violin and the vocals,  “And the day has come when we no longer feel.”  That refrain is picked up by the beautiful choir voices (they really sound great).  As they repeat this section, Efrim sings a harsh lead vocal (he sounds a bit like Larry Kirwan from Black 47).  There’s an instrumental section that scorches with noisy guitars for about a minute and then at 9 minutes the song returns to that beautiful chorus (with male voices added) and that delicate violin.  It goes on like this until the end.  It’s really lovely.

The final song “Rains Thru the Roof at Thee Grande Ballroom (For Capital Steez)” is also rather different for the band.  It is “introduced” by an interview (in English and translated into French) from an unnamed musician who is talking about how being in a band is more than a part time gig … it’s what you devote your life to.  When the music comes in it’s floor toms and an unsettling distorted and scratchy strings or keyboards or sampled voices and keyboard which slowly growing louder.  There’s stabs of piano and vocals which are far back in the mix.  The melody is nice but mournful and it continues for all of the four minutes.  [Capital Steez was a rapper from Brooklyn who committed suicide in 2012.  I honestly can’t tell what this song has to do with him].

I’m not sure which band we can expect to hear from next, but both GYBE and SMtZ have released really strong records in the last few years.

For this album, the lineup stays the same as on the previous album (and the band name has remained the same, too).

Thierry Amar: Upright bass, electric bass, plucked piano, vocals
Efrim Menuck: Electric guitar, acoustic guitar, mellotron, vocals
Jessica Moss: Violin, plucked piano, vocals
Sophie Trudeau: Violin, plucked piano, vocals
and David Payant has taken over for Eric Craven on drums, organ, piano and vocals

[READ: March 15, 2016] “Confessions of a Humorist”

I only found out about this story from reading The Fate of the Artist.  I have always vaguely liked O. Henry, but can’t say that I’ve read much by him.  I found this story to be simple and fairly obvious, although perhaps it was obvious because he introduced this style of storytelling to the world one hundred years ago.

The narrator is a bookkeeper in a hardware firm.  We learn a bit more about him and his family.  This line delighted me for some reason, “Naturally, we lived in a vine-covered cottage.”

On the occasion of the senior partner’s 50th birthday, he was selected to give a speech.  And it was a hit.  People laughed and suddenly his reputation as humorist was established. (more…)

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Anne Carson–“‘We’ve Only Just Begun'” (Harper’s, January 2016)

Posted in A Silver Mt. Zion, Anne Carson, Canadian Music, Constellation Records, Funny (strange), Gangsters, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Harper's, Huh?, Sam Shalibi, Short Story, Silver Mt. Zion, Snakes on May 19, 2016| Leave a Comment »

HarpersWeb-Cover-2016-01-410SOUNDTRACK: A SILVER MT. ZION-He Has Left Us Alone but Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corner of Our Rooms… [CST009] (2000).

smtzWhile working with Godspeed You Black Emperor, Efrim decided to start another band.  Ostensibly this was an attempt to “learn music” and to be able to communicate better with his fellow musicians.  Apparently, this didn’t work.  So rather he created another band A Silver Mt. Zion (whose name has changed on nearly every album).  Strangely enough, he took two other members from Godspeed with him Thierry Amar (bass and more) and Sophie Trudeau (violins).

So how different can this band sound, then?

Well, quite different, actually.  Efrim’s main instrument for this album is piano (there was no piano in Godspeed as far as I can recall).  And virtually the entire album plays like a slow modern classical piano album.

This album being made by the folks from GYBE, there’s bound to be some differences between the vinyl and the CD.  The vinyl lists two songs, while the CD breaks those two songs into four parts each.

“Lonely as the Sound of Lying on the Ground of an Airplane Going Down” is the first song.  It has four parts.

“Broken Chords Can Sing a Little” opens with some piano chords, slowly meandering through a slightly dark melody.  The song is 8 minutes long and about 3 minutes in, there’s some staticky recorded voices that speak over the melody.  A slow mournful violin comes in about 4 minutes in.  Another voice fights for dominance during the song (they may both be religious speakers, although it’s not always clear).  The last minute or so of the song is simply the two voices speaking over each other.

“Sit in the Middle of Three Galloping Dogs” introduces some drums into the mix.  It’s the only song with drums–provided by GYBE member Aidan Girt.  Those voices continue into this song.  The drums give the song momentum as they play under an echoing guitar and some cool overdubbed violin parts.  The song seems like it will continue the same, but about half way in, the music drops off except for a fast bowing violin and then it shifts tone completely, with a more intricate drumbeat and new layers of violin.

The end of the song merges with the next track’s opening piano notes.  “Stumble Then Rise on Some Awkward Morning” returns to the sound of the first track–spare piano and plaintive violin.  The song slowly builds, but in a very different way from GYBE.  The pianos grow more insistent, but don’t seem to be heading towards a cathartic conclusion, just toward a new location.  And the song ends with a series of descending piano notes.

“Movie (Never Made)”is only three minutes long and it marks yet another departure from the GYBE/SMtZ instrumental world.  Efrim sings! His singing voice is whispered and quiet (occasionally anguished) and works pretty well in this quiet song.  The beginning lyrics: “A Silver Mt. Zion / all buried in ruins / we was dancing the hora / until we vomited blood.”  (Efrim described recording the album as a “Jewish experience”).  The music is spare piano and a rather jazzy contrabass until the end when a violin is added.  But it is primarily a spare piano and vocal song.

Disc/Side Two is called “The World Is SickSICK; (So Kiss Me Quick)!” and also has four parts.

“13 Angels Standing Guard ’round the Side of Your Bed” opens with what sounds like distant voices fading in and out amid washes of guitar chords.  The bass and violin anchor the song to a melody.  The “voices” might actually be guitars, although they sound almost like angels singing amid the ambient waves.

“Long March Rocket or Doomed Airliner” is listed as being only five seconds long and is all silence.  The CD suggests that all of the songs are timed as round numbers (9:00, 3:00) which isn’t true according to the CD.

“Blown-Out Joy from Heaven’s Mercied Hole” begins with a slow jazzy bass and Efrim singing gently.  Harmony vocals (from Sophie) can be heard as well.  The song is nearly ten minutes–the longest on the disc.  And the vocals stop pretty quickly.  The rest of the song is violin over the bass with a sprinkling of piano notes as well (sometimes playing a lengthy riff or run).  This song also features two guests: Gordon Krieger on bass clarinet and Sam Shalabi on guitar (both of which come in around 8 minutes, I believe).

“For Wanda” is apparently the inspiration for the disc.  The album was born out of Efrim’s desire to record something for his dog Wanda, who died while GYBE were on tour.  This song is a slow melancholy piano with ambient sounds in the background (unclear what they are although they sound like fireworks).  Eventually, the violin comes in as well and continues the melancholia.  The song fades only to be followed by a quiet coda on the organ.

So yes, this is quite a different sound and feel from GYBE.  And, perhaps surprisingly, this would prove to be Efrim’s main musical outlet, releasing several albums and couple of EPs before GYBE would reunite.

[READ: January 19, 2016] “‘We’ve Only Just Begun'”

I was sure I had finished off all the older Harper’s stories, but here’s one that I missed.  And it is pretty peculiar.

The story is elliptical. not really having an opening and not really having an ending.

And as such, a review has to be somewhat elliptical as well.  The story opens:

“They got into our car at a stoplight. It was cold. We never lock the doors in back. There were two of them. At the apartment they terrorized us.”

One of “them” was named Grimaldi. (more…)

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K.D. Miller–“Witness” (The Walrus, May 2016)

Posted in Artists, Babies, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Constellation Records, Godspeed You Black Emperor, K.D. Miller, Short Story, The Walrus, Violence on May 18, 2016| Leave a Comment »

2016-05SOUNDTRACK: GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR-‘Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress’ [CST111] (2015).

Godspeed_You!_Black_Emperor_-_Asunder,_Sweet_and_Other_DistressIn 2015, GY!BE released their so far last record.  And it lasts a mere 40 minutes.

As with the previous record, there are two longer songs and two somewhat shorter ones.  The album’s four tracks are based on “Behemoth,” played live numerous times since 2012 and previously recorded onstage for the concert series We Have Signal. (Absolutely worth a viewing if you like the band–this is a good recording).

“Peasantry or ‘Light! Inside of Light!'” has perhaps my favorite opening from any GY!BE album.  After a series of drum beats, the big monolithic riff kicks in.  It begins as two notes but slowly grows and morphs into something bigger.  The bands rocks the riff for about 3 minutes, when there’s a brief guitar solo and a change in direction (with lots of chaos and noise).  And then the song turns pretty and strangely uplifting–the violin riffs that punctuate the middle of the song are quite beautiful.  For the last two or so minutes, the song really slows down, keeping that same basic melody but adding a slow guitar playing the riff.  It’s capped off with more of those soaring violin riffs.  At ten minutes total, it’s one of their shorter “epic” pieces, but I think it’s a great one.

“Lambs’ Breath” (almost ten minutes) begins as a seamless continuation of the previous part, opening with noisy static guitar sounds and droney chords.  This track is almost ten minutes long and it goes through many different waves of noise.  There’s some echoed sound effects and static that more or less drop out into a quieter drone about 3 minutes in.  The quiet (very quiet) drone is accompanied by electronic sounds.  The last nearly 3 minutes are all one note, oscillating somewhat, but feeling like it never stops.  On the vinyl, this track ends in a locked groove, so it actually does go forever.

“Asunder, Sweet” (6 minutes) continues with that same note until it is punctuated by echoed guitar notes and buzzing sounds.  Around three minutes in, more sounds start rising out of the murky noise.  It feels like a beast slowly waking.  There’s some pretty feedback as the drone grows louder….

“Piss Crowns Are Trebled” is nearly 14 minutes long. It continues of the growing drones of the previous song but immediately adds a violin.

For this album there is one minor change:

  • Thierry Amar – bass guitar, double bass
  • David Bryant – electric guitar, Portasound, organ, drones
  • Aidan Girt – drums
  • Karl Lemieux – 16mm frames artwork, photography
  • Efrim Menuck – electric guitar
  • Mike Moya – electric guitar,
  • Mauro Pezzente – bass guitar
  • Sophie Trudeau – violin, drones
  • Timothy Herzog drums, drone [replacing Bruce Cawdron]

[READ: April 11, 2016] “Witness”

I really enjoyed this story and the wonderful direction it went at the end (I’ve been worried about The Walrus’ dark stories as of late).

The story is about an older woman (she is over 70), Harriet.  Harriet is a painter.  She lives alone by the lake, despite her son’s protestations.   And as the story opens, we see her attacked by someone in her home.

What was so interesting about the way the story was constructed was that Harriet remained wonderfully calm through the whole ordeal.  She remembered to turn her head while the man (who smelled of Juicy Fruit) put his arms around her throat (this prevents you from losing oxygen).  She could tell that the boy was one of the local kids who hung out down by the 7-Eleven.

But instead of freaking out, she remains calm through it all.  She talks to him in a friendly manner.  When he asks for the money, she says it’s in the bedroom.  But he forces her down the hall to the room.  As they are about to head in, she tells him that there’s a mirror in there.  She doesn’t want to see is face or know who he is (such good thinking).

He pauses, thinks this over, then throws her to the floor and proceeds to take her money.  (So I didn’t love that part of the story). (more…)

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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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