(this is about music, trust me. let's just call it an experiment in
abstract reviewing.)
this morning i woke up, 8am. i laid there completely confused as to why
i was up at this hour, and why i wasn't shutting down back into sleep.
i laid there like this for 2 hours. other thoughts crept in: had there
been more suicide bombers? has anything bad happened over here yet? how
much will the uhaul from SF to LA cost? i have to pay taxes soon. or at
least file for extension. jesus i'm broke.
10am i manage to pull on some pants and get to the kitchen and make a
pot of peet's house blend. as i'm dumping tablespoons into the mr
coffee i start to miss j's home-roasted st helena. then i just start to
miss j...i put my ass on the couch and write business emails that i
should have written a few days ago. b comes in and asks if i want to go
see the core, i pass on that one. the pile of cds on the coffeetable is
as such:
the remote viewer 'here i go again on my own', manual 'ascend',
f.s.blumm 'mondkuchen', hermann & kleine 'our noise', static 'eject
your mind', mum 'finally we are no one', funckarma 'parts', bogdan 'my
love i love', stars as eyes 'freedom rock', plaid 'double figure', ten
and tracer 'an hour brighter', the aluminum group 'happyness', manitoba
'start breaking my heart', the sea and cake 'one bedroom', mum 'please
smile my noise bleed', styrofoam 'a short album about murder', tied and
tickled trio 'ea1 ea2 rmx', solvent 'solvent city', prefuse 73 'vocal
studies + uprock narratives', herbert 'bodily functions', 'annexe:
cottage industries 2', manual 'until tomorrow', 'dub: nummer drie'.
there are so many because i have no idea what to listen to. i put in
static because i want to hear track 2, 'headphones'. melancholy track,
maybe not the best way to start the day, something about the simplicity
of ronald lippok's vocals, closer to talking than singing, battling the
loud burbling of mr coffee in the kitchen. this particular track puts
me in the same space as the notwist's 'neon golden' album, but with
more of a winter feel than a summer feel. stark, but filled with little
talking programmer brains, making your ears do this and that. warm
analogue-sounding synth sounds frozen over by high yet subtle
percussive elements. makes your arms feel heavy if you're sitting down.
lippok sounds far away, over across the atlantic, sad because he's just
broken or lost his very architectural german eyeglasses. i sit there
and think about j sleeping in her bed, how in a few weeks i'll next to
her, a lot closer than ~500 miles away.
the coffee is done and on the way to the kitchen i swap out static for
hermann + kleine's 'our noise'. i hadn't listened to this one in a
while, and recalled it as not exactly up my alley...i managed to make
the coffee not quite as bitter as last time, so it needs less milk. i'm
debating a bowl of rice krispies but decide against it. i'm deciding
no, i don't really like this one, 'our noise', something about the
heavy underlying distorto-beats in some of the tracks putting me the
wrong way. 3/4 of the way through it's reminding me of old shoegazer
stuff, with psuedo wall-of-noise elements and breathy girl vocals on
some of the tracks, or almost-soundtracks to PBS shows about deep sea
adventures, or outer space. homeless people digging through the
recycling outside adds an interesting contrast, random glass clanking
together...i let the disc play through, but nothing really catches my
ear.
i take a look at cnn.com, against better judgement. tommy franks claims
'steady gains'. who's gaining what? doesn't seem like anyone's gaining
anything in this except dead. and then i think tommy franks should be
the one with the lean mean fat burning machine, not george foreman. the
name just fits better.
then it's manual time. 'until tomorrow'. clicky beginnings of 'nova'
fade into guitar line as i realize the display on this old powerbook is
getting wobbly, wish i had the cash for a new one...beats come in,
arranged in a way that reminds me of trying to start an old chevy.
somehow this isn't exactly bad. the track progresses and i'm reminded
of plaid from the 'not for threes' days, this continues as 'nova' gives
over to 'velvet sunset'. i like this one, but can't hear the velvet in
it. more like slightly warmed linoleum. smooth, no garish pattern.
'it'll be fine' comes in with a synth line that reminds me vaguely of
boards of canada before mixing up into something that could possibly
find a place on an old legend of zelda soundtrack. this may seem bad,
but it's not. reminds me of being a kid again back in milwaukee, when
the summers were like swamps it was so humid, and we all hung out in
dark living rooms during the hottest part of the day, playing nintendo.
then out to the baseball fields when it cooled off, fucking around with
bats and baseballs (i could never hit, but i sure could throw), getting
paid by the fat park attendant to put bases out for the adult softball
night games, spending the money on toilet paper and lighting trees on
fire with it. stupid little pyros...'lunate' is almost there, but goes
slightly discordant in a way i can't really explain, in a way i don't
think other people would be bothered so much by. made me felt i was
driving around lost in a convertible that wasn't mine. scanning back
through the whole album up to this point, it's music to listen to after
parts of the world have sunk into the ocean. strange, submerged, subtly
distorted, and wet in a 'heat' sort of way.
you'll have to forgive me some of these wack descriptions. sometimes
that's just the way it goes.
the d'n'b beat of 'inn' reminds me of a track i used to listen to all
the time when i was with an old ex of mine. i wonder how she's doing,
set to marry soon, settled down in a recently purchased
house...couldn't imagine myself in the same situation right now.
bizarre. the looped guitar line in this one is reminding me of some
indie rock song, i can't remember which or by who, and it's driving me
crazy. american analog set? no...close though...
the news is tiring and irritating and feels like a pack of lies. war
drags on, chopper crashes, rumsfeld is testy with the press, some
bloody uniforms found. i ask myself why i keep going back and reading
it, i guess it's because i just want to see WAR OVER, want the big
stupid red bars and 3D diagrams of tanks and planes to go away. i
notice a bigass horsefly flying around the room and remembered the open
window. nice breeze coming in, it must be nice out. i'm distracted, the
last 3 tracks of 'until tomorrow' pass by unnoticed.
i think about putting in the remote viewer, 'here i go again on my
own', but then decide to go do something outside. it's warm, almost
hot, and that's rare, and i have only a few weeks left in this city.
more later. over and out.
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