As of late, I have been thinking about the rhetorical strategy of "new literature"- the idea that somehow past forms have failed us, and new solutions need to be devised. I am not sure of the efficacy of the thinking, not sure how many of the elements thought to be discardable are in fact crucial. Still I apply the idea to film, cinema, as the median quality of narrative film craft seems to be diminishing. Luckily in the past week I saw two new films that excited in their strangeness.
The first was Upstream Color, which won me over by its insisting on engaging with its visual language, told in short scenes and disconnected dialogue. Something that doesn't give the mind room to wander, that the viewer needs to put together "what is happening" at every moment, and divine an interpretation, some sort of thematic resonance. For my part, I viewed two separate characters as being one character and interpreted something much darker than was intended, initial scenes of rough content lingering into later acts' beauty. Watching it I thought about comics like Dash Shaw's Bodyworld and the Alan Moore Swamp Thing, and movies like Saul Bass' Phase IV.
Computer Chess, on the other hand, I was on its frequency from the jump, it felt like. Its story was parseable, initially posing as a faux-documentary about an interesting milieu, filled with interesting characters, and then going on to feel more like a novel, as it introduced elements separate from it initially presumed to be about, introduced loose ends, and grew into a totality. The characterizations, the performances by non-actors, felt true: The way socially-awkward men interact with the sole female in a male milieu. The way nerds jockey for social capital, competing according to their own codes of what constitutes coolness. Meanwhile, strangeness, a horror, at the edges, connected to the questions the characters bring up as challenges to one another but in some truer sense avoid asking. The period setting doesn't give way to jokes, only one wink to the future that the audience knows is coming, that is in keeping with its thematic thrust. I loved it.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Friday, April 19, 2013
Comedy in 2013
Currently reading Vernon Chatman's book Mindsploitation. Chatman was the PFFR member behind Final Flesh, a taunting of made-to-order porn companies with absurdity. This is that for the online-essay-writing industry, this conceptual gambit that maybe strays into the profound, by way of people for whom English is probably not their first language contending with a series of puns and gambits.
The Comedy Central series Nathan For You has a different tone and sense of humor but seems to proceed from at least some of the same premises. It is produced by Absolutely, the Tim and Eric production company, and I am probably forever going to view their work in parallel with the PFFR gang in my mind. Nathan For You is about a canadian comedian, going around, helping businesses with sort of short-sighted or gimmicky promotions. Or, that's the nominal premise, but there have been episodes that don't fit into that model at all: It is sort of about spectacle as a be-all end-all in a world where business and money-making doesn't really work, so doing things that are sort of ridiculous or fun or dangerous serves as an end in itself, because of how ridiculous everything is.
The tone on Nathan For You, despite it maybe seeming exploitative in its premise, is pretty gentle, warm. It seems like the same people advocating for it on Twitter are the same people who were proponents for HBO's Enlightened, a few weeks ago, the Laura Dern vehicle created by Mike White, that I really liked but sort of knew was not for everyone due to how gentle it was. Enlightened is a show that is about politics, or the damages being wrought by capitalism on the world at large, and the people who, in their activist opposition to these systems, might be damaging the lives of people close to them.
Armando Iannucci's Veep could also maybe be brought into this argument, with its politicians that act out of self-interest and accomplish nothing. These are dark times, these feel like appropriate satirical responses, targets along an axis point. Mindsploitation takes on globalism, and the laziness of American students, Nathan For You addresses the desperation of small businesses, Enlightened is about corporate malfeasance and indifference to its workers, Veep is about politicians' operating desperately out of self-interest. All of these things are also sort of only able to get meager laughs: The first two because of the distancing effect of their conceptual aims, (aiming more for a sort of stupefied awe), Enlightened because it is basically a melancholy drama, and Veep is sort of relentlessly jokey and mean in a way where its moments don't breathe. Comedy at this particular moment seems like it is being made by people who sort of view comedy as useless, a mild balm that can't really destroy sadness, and is frequently used as a device to stifle real change. (See also: Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror, where comedians stop making jokes altogether and instead write dark science-fiction that blurs into horror.)
But still all these things seem way more liberal and effective and "good art" and "not just the ruling class congratulating itself" than TV drama does, to say nothing of action cinema's franchise propagation and deeply problematic politics.
The Comedy Central series Nathan For You has a different tone and sense of humor but seems to proceed from at least some of the same premises. It is produced by Absolutely, the Tim and Eric production company, and I am probably forever going to view their work in parallel with the PFFR gang in my mind. Nathan For You is about a canadian comedian, going around, helping businesses with sort of short-sighted or gimmicky promotions. Or, that's the nominal premise, but there have been episodes that don't fit into that model at all: It is sort of about spectacle as a be-all end-all in a world where business and money-making doesn't really work, so doing things that are sort of ridiculous or fun or dangerous serves as an end in itself, because of how ridiculous everything is.
The tone on Nathan For You, despite it maybe seeming exploitative in its premise, is pretty gentle, warm. It seems like the same people advocating for it on Twitter are the same people who were proponents for HBO's Enlightened, a few weeks ago, the Laura Dern vehicle created by Mike White, that I really liked but sort of knew was not for everyone due to how gentle it was. Enlightened is a show that is about politics, or the damages being wrought by capitalism on the world at large, and the people who, in their activist opposition to these systems, might be damaging the lives of people close to them.
Armando Iannucci's Veep could also maybe be brought into this argument, with its politicians that act out of self-interest and accomplish nothing. These are dark times, these feel like appropriate satirical responses, targets along an axis point. Mindsploitation takes on globalism, and the laziness of American students, Nathan For You addresses the desperation of small businesses, Enlightened is about corporate malfeasance and indifference to its workers, Veep is about politicians' operating desperately out of self-interest. All of these things are also sort of only able to get meager laughs: The first two because of the distancing effect of their conceptual aims, (aiming more for a sort of stupefied awe), Enlightened because it is basically a melancholy drama, and Veep is sort of relentlessly jokey and mean in a way where its moments don't breathe. Comedy at this particular moment seems like it is being made by people who sort of view comedy as useless, a mild balm that can't really destroy sadness, and is frequently used as a device to stifle real change. (See also: Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror, where comedians stop making jokes altogether and instead write dark science-fiction that blurs into horror.)
But still all these things seem way more liberal and effective and "good art" and "not just the ruling class congratulating itself" than TV drama does, to say nothing of action cinema's franchise propagation and deeply problematic politics.
Saturday, March 16, 2013
On Animal Collective, and nostalgia
I dutifully picked up copies of the last couple Animal Collective LPs when they came out, despite not being particularly into the works that preceded them. I found Merriwether Post Pavilion too slick, and Centipede Hz sort of just generally irritating. But they're a band whose career arc I feel emotionally invested in, in sort of a strange way.
This is because the last record of theirs I loved was Feels, which was essentially a folk record. Folk music seems "mature," in some ways, musically. On the Drag City roster you can see any number of people who started off noisy and experimental and later moved into a more stripped-down and song-oriented direction. Bill Callahan would probably be the best example. It seems like something to age into, in your dotage, for a musician, as the idea of being abrasive no longer feels true to where you're at.
But for Animal Collective, that ended up being a detour. The path they were on was towards song, and the electronics of their early work got pushed into more rhythmic directions, and they found a good deal of success there.
So when I pick up a new Animal Collective record I am partly expecting a return to austerity, or something; a realization that the pop song is an adolescent form. But: They've found success with these songs. Every one of their records, since Here Comes The Indian, has brought them increasingly larger audiences, been a breakthrough that's brought them into playing larger venues. I realized only fairly recently that a lot of people got on board with the follow-up to Feels, Strawberry Jam.
Around the time of that record's release, some members of the band had children. I read an interview where one of them remarked that this meant they felt a deeper commitment to their art, that they could no longer phone it in.
I don't want to talk about these pop songs in terms of being a sell-out move. I think it makes sense as an arc. But it's interesting, also, the idea of artistic maturity not in terms of musical signifiers of austerity, but in terms of art being something you do to pay the bills, that you can make a career out of. And Animal Collective's audience, I think, is generally younger than they are- They cannot retreat to the NPR circuit, or academia, or anywhere where there's institutional support. They are young people in the shit, they actually have to sell records.
A funny thing about Animal Collective, though, is their attraction to the band the Sun City Girls. It's this attraction that led to getting Scott Colburn to produce Feels, following his involvement on so many Sun City Girls records. The Sun City Girls, famously, did not give a shit about the quality of their records, and put out a ton of crap. Feels, then, would be one of the best-sounding records Colburn ever produced, with not much in terms of competition, really, until the death of Charles Gocher precipitated the brothers Bishop actually attempting to make a beautiful Sun City Girls record, 2010's Funeral Mariachi.
The other thing, about Sung Tongs, and Feels, is that, although they are folk records, they're also nostalgic for childhood, for bits of beauty found there. The shift that happens afterwards is that the music is still sort of about childhood, but from a different perpective; experiencing it vicariously, through the eyes of your children, now that the band themselves are parents.
This is a path that makes sense, artistically, in another sense: Life is too long to be prematurely old, and nostalgia for childhood is, in some sense, an old man's emotion. The dudes in Animal Collective will probably not make another folk record in some time. Quite possibly, it'll have to wait 20-odd years, until their children are out of the house and taking care of themselves.
So this then leaves Feels and Sung Tongs in an odd spot of being charged with meaning, a path artistically unexplored, that they never made other records like those, records that a listener like myself, who heard them when they came out, can hear nostalgically, for the time period past that won't come again. I am sure there must be people now who are getting into those records, maybe finding them more meaningful and closer to their experience than the music Animal Collective is making now. Who knows where we'll all be the next time we're in the same place?
This is because the last record of theirs I loved was Feels, which was essentially a folk record. Folk music seems "mature," in some ways, musically. On the Drag City roster you can see any number of people who started off noisy and experimental and later moved into a more stripped-down and song-oriented direction. Bill Callahan would probably be the best example. It seems like something to age into, in your dotage, for a musician, as the idea of being abrasive no longer feels true to where you're at.
But for Animal Collective, that ended up being a detour. The path they were on was towards song, and the electronics of their early work got pushed into more rhythmic directions, and they found a good deal of success there.
So when I pick up a new Animal Collective record I am partly expecting a return to austerity, or something; a realization that the pop song is an adolescent form. But: They've found success with these songs. Every one of their records, since Here Comes The Indian, has brought them increasingly larger audiences, been a breakthrough that's brought them into playing larger venues. I realized only fairly recently that a lot of people got on board with the follow-up to Feels, Strawberry Jam.
Around the time of that record's release, some members of the band had children. I read an interview where one of them remarked that this meant they felt a deeper commitment to their art, that they could no longer phone it in.
I don't want to talk about these pop songs in terms of being a sell-out move. I think it makes sense as an arc. But it's interesting, also, the idea of artistic maturity not in terms of musical signifiers of austerity, but in terms of art being something you do to pay the bills, that you can make a career out of. And Animal Collective's audience, I think, is generally younger than they are- They cannot retreat to the NPR circuit, or academia, or anywhere where there's institutional support. They are young people in the shit, they actually have to sell records.
A funny thing about Animal Collective, though, is their attraction to the band the Sun City Girls. It's this attraction that led to getting Scott Colburn to produce Feels, following his involvement on so many Sun City Girls records. The Sun City Girls, famously, did not give a shit about the quality of their records, and put out a ton of crap. Feels, then, would be one of the best-sounding records Colburn ever produced, with not much in terms of competition, really, until the death of Charles Gocher precipitated the brothers Bishop actually attempting to make a beautiful Sun City Girls record, 2010's Funeral Mariachi.
The other thing, about Sung Tongs, and Feels, is that, although they are folk records, they're also nostalgic for childhood, for bits of beauty found there. The shift that happens afterwards is that the music is still sort of about childhood, but from a different perpective; experiencing it vicariously, through the eyes of your children, now that the band themselves are parents.
This is a path that makes sense, artistically, in another sense: Life is too long to be prematurely old, and nostalgia for childhood is, in some sense, an old man's emotion. The dudes in Animal Collective will probably not make another folk record in some time. Quite possibly, it'll have to wait 20-odd years, until their children are out of the house and taking care of themselves.
So this then leaves Feels and Sung Tongs in an odd spot of being charged with meaning, a path artistically unexplored, that they never made other records like those, records that a listener like myself, who heard them when they came out, can hear nostalgically, for the time period past that won't come again. I am sure there must be people now who are getting into those records, maybe finding them more meaningful and closer to their experience than the music Animal Collective is making now. Who knows where we'll all be the next time we're in the same place?
Monday, March 04, 2013
Music Writing
I have some little music reviews coming out in a print publication later this week. I've tried to do this before, and it's tricky. There is plenty of music-writing being done, all over the internet, and while I would not want to say that a lot of it is terrible, a lot of it does things that I tried specifically to avoid doing.
I did not want to talk about music using the reference point of other bands. In some ways, this is a stupid rule to set for myself. A lot of music being made sounds like other music that has already been made. That is how we, as listeners, are able to understand it as music, for the most part. In many ways, the music that already exists is better, more historically important, and so is deserving of having attention directed towards it. But- and here's my rationale- maybe if we didn't do this so much, if we didn't play this game, we would be less likely to write about music with such obvious reference points. If a writer likes a band because they sound like Nirvana, but can't mention Nirvana, maybe they will not write about that band, and music with less obvious forebears will be discussed instead. I don't know. This is probably a stupid rule.
I should make it clear that the magazine is about art more generally than it is about music. This is why I chose to write about music that can be discussed more as an art project, more as an articulation of an idea or a practice than a historical lineage. Obviously in the art world historical referents are still huge, but this was just my way of attempting to engage an art audience.
I just saw today a little thing on Twitter where the music writer Marc Masters- he writes for Pitchfork about the more interesting or avant garde music that gets reviewed on Pitchfork these days- was mentioning how he would like to see less comparing of female artists to other female artists, more comparison between the work of people of separate genders. I think this is a good idea, a good constraint to set for oneself- Sort of similar to the one I employed, but to different ends. But what's funny is that my approach, of trying to write, essentially, about the implied personality of an artist, their concerns as reflective of where they're individually coming from- would in many ways call attention to an artist's gender, as that identity is a fairly large shaper of identity. I guess the logic, then, would be to bring up if an artist is male or not. Which, actually, rereading my reviews, I did do, for the two releases attributed to a male solo act. Although I didn't mention gender in my reviews of groups consisting of couples, one of which is gay, one of which is straight.
Another thing I tried to avoid using was adjectives, of the vague sort that generally show up in music criticism: Gauzy, ethereal, angular, etc.
I also didn't want to talk about myself and my own experiences.
My point with all of this is that music writing is such a weird and fucked up animal of a thing that I recommend using Oulipo-style constraints of some kind or another to avoid the weird patterns of received wisdom, and to try to get at original thought. I hope that I get more chances to try to develop this critical practice, as a way of expanding the scope of what I'm discussing without developing any bad habits. I didn't write any negative reviews, which could be a rule, and is certainly one other people I know have set for themselves, but I think I'm actually interested in doing that with a set of constraints, without just going to the well of mocking the signifiers a band employs, or my imagining of their fanbase. It seems inevitable that these rules would in time become a hindrance, or in other ways unproductive. (I was also writing about only a small group of releases, and trying for diversity while also not just talking about high-profile work. In retrospect I wish I had talked about more obscure work, but hopefully that will come in time, if I get more chances to do this writing, and expand my scope.)
I did not want to talk about music using the reference point of other bands. In some ways, this is a stupid rule to set for myself. A lot of music being made sounds like other music that has already been made. That is how we, as listeners, are able to understand it as music, for the most part. In many ways, the music that already exists is better, more historically important, and so is deserving of having attention directed towards it. But- and here's my rationale- maybe if we didn't do this so much, if we didn't play this game, we would be less likely to write about music with such obvious reference points. If a writer likes a band because they sound like Nirvana, but can't mention Nirvana, maybe they will not write about that band, and music with less obvious forebears will be discussed instead. I don't know. This is probably a stupid rule.
I should make it clear that the magazine is about art more generally than it is about music. This is why I chose to write about music that can be discussed more as an art project, more as an articulation of an idea or a practice than a historical lineage. Obviously in the art world historical referents are still huge, but this was just my way of attempting to engage an art audience.
I just saw today a little thing on Twitter where the music writer Marc Masters- he writes for Pitchfork about the more interesting or avant garde music that gets reviewed on Pitchfork these days- was mentioning how he would like to see less comparing of female artists to other female artists, more comparison between the work of people of separate genders. I think this is a good idea, a good constraint to set for oneself- Sort of similar to the one I employed, but to different ends. But what's funny is that my approach, of trying to write, essentially, about the implied personality of an artist, their concerns as reflective of where they're individually coming from- would in many ways call attention to an artist's gender, as that identity is a fairly large shaper of identity. I guess the logic, then, would be to bring up if an artist is male or not. Which, actually, rereading my reviews, I did do, for the two releases attributed to a male solo act. Although I didn't mention gender in my reviews of groups consisting of couples, one of which is gay, one of which is straight.
Another thing I tried to avoid using was adjectives, of the vague sort that generally show up in music criticism: Gauzy, ethereal, angular, etc.
I also didn't want to talk about myself and my own experiences.
My point with all of this is that music writing is such a weird and fucked up animal of a thing that I recommend using Oulipo-style constraints of some kind or another to avoid the weird patterns of received wisdom, and to try to get at original thought. I hope that I get more chances to try to develop this critical practice, as a way of expanding the scope of what I'm discussing without developing any bad habits. I didn't write any negative reviews, which could be a rule, and is certainly one other people I know have set for themselves, but I think I'm actually interested in doing that with a set of constraints, without just going to the well of mocking the signifiers a band employs, or my imagining of their fanbase. It seems inevitable that these rules would in time become a hindrance, or in other ways unproductive. (I was also writing about only a small group of releases, and trying for diversity while also not just talking about high-profile work. In retrospect I wish I had talked about more obscure work, but hopefully that will come in time, if I get more chances to do this writing, and expand my scope.)
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Music I think I heard for the first time this year
(Actually I got into this in August 2011. It's still a good song, if you've never heard it.)
Also: The Ruined Frame .
Thursday, November 22, 2012
More of the year's music
As December approaches, and people start turning the procession of the last twelve months as a narrative, some professionals boil that down further, into a list that can be compiled into a consensus narrative. When it comes to music, I have done a fairly good job keeping any potential readers abreast of the music I thought was notable. But as music continues to come out, there were more things to discuss.
First and foremost is Jeff Zagers' Key Conduction cassette, put out by Human Conduct Records. For all this year's synthesizer music, that uses incredibly expensive equipment to sound like cheap presets, I like Zager's use of MIDI more, hitting upon those "new age" tones, while live instruments, such as drums and saxophone cascade in vague emulation of a Coltrane's spiritual pursuits through jazz. There's also some songs with vocals. I saw Zagers on tour with Russian Tsarlag earlier this year, when he covered a Yoko Ono song, and Yoko fits into the stew of influences on display here. His blog also has a "salute" section, which I appreciate both for the openness and sincerity of the gesture and for the musicians he credits.
(The other things that were available from Human Conduct when I made my order, the Moth Cock cassette and the Bathetic-released Dinner Music tape Tomb Of Comb, are also really good.)
Another one of the best shows I've shows I've seen all year was Alvarius B, Alan Bishop of the Sun City Girls, in Philadelphia. I am really into the lone performer these days, someone who does songs, who leaves enough space around them for the audience to violate, and seeing how they hold that attention. Alan doesn't take shit, stopping mid-song to yell "hey fuckface!" at two talkers in the balcony. That was around the time of the reissue of his 1996 double-LP, which I previously only had mp3s of a crappy vinyl rip of, but now own a nice double-CD with bonus tracks, one of which is a solo version of "CCC." In between the increased fidelity and witnessing the live performance I have newfound love for these songs, somewhat evil in lyrical content and deeply compelling. Hopefully the next new LP will contain the rewritten version of Bob Dylan's "Wanted Man" that slayed everyone in attendance.
(Other notable reissues/archival projects from this year would by My Bloody Valentine's EPs 1988-1991, containing a good deal of bonus tracks, and Can's The Lost Tapes.)
Another solo performer, but one with a completely different stage presence, was Angel Olsen, who kept an audience fairly enraptured with a fairly short set. Her new record, Half Way Home, seems more like a country record than Strange Cacti did, due to an absence of reverb that makes her phrasing more apparent, and the slightly embellished arrangements. I am really into these more uptempo cuts, which were fairly unexpected going in.
For a moment when I was trying to set up that Angel Olsen show, before I gave up completely and Elijah stepped in, I had this idea that it would be cool if that show had Bee Mask playing it as well, despite the completely different styles of music- Bee Mask makes electronic music, the sort of dude who is now playing European techno festivals, which seems like a bad fit to me, but what do I know? I like his Vaporware/Scanops 12-inch and the When We Were Eating Unripe Pears LP fairly well. Somehow the deep psych explorations of this material seems like a useful contrast to grounded songwriting, and while that live show did not happen, they can be juxtaposed comfortably besides one another in record player rotation.
Other electronic music that seems noteworthy is Golden Retriever's Occupied With The Unspoken LP, and Mouse On Mars' Wow. I'm looking forward to the Container and Three Legged Race records set for release on Spectrum Spools by the end of the year, as well as the Form A Log record, from a lebel unknown to me, that spawned this video. (Form A Log is a trio consisting of Ren of Container, Rick Weaver of Dinner Music/proprietor of Human Conduct, and Noah, formerly of Social Junk and presently of Profligate.)
In terms of rap music, I like the new Kendrick Lamar record, as well as the new Aesop Rock and El-P records. I don't like any of these as much as the rap records I've mentioned in other posts from this year (Death Grips' The Money Store, Lil B's God's Father and White Flame mixtapes, Lil Ugly Mane's Mista Thug Isolation). It's been a good year for weird rap, and the fact that Kendrick Lamar's record feels like such a triumph for classicism and conscious rap makes it seem like a good year for the genre all around.
It feels like a good year for music in general, actually, in comparison to the last few years: There is music getting press that seems actually good, and things that seem actually "new." As I've been writing this post I've been listening to Chris Weisman's 88-song digital release, Maya Properties, and just reached a point where the songs stop and a down-pitched voice warns that this is the point where things get weirder, farther out, potentially embarrassing. A very exciting prospect to consider if you don't like the other very exciting prospect of November 22, 2012, which is that the world will end in a month.
First and foremost is Jeff Zagers' Key Conduction cassette, put out by Human Conduct Records. For all this year's synthesizer music, that uses incredibly expensive equipment to sound like cheap presets, I like Zager's use of MIDI more, hitting upon those "new age" tones, while live instruments, such as drums and saxophone cascade in vague emulation of a Coltrane's spiritual pursuits through jazz. There's also some songs with vocals. I saw Zagers on tour with Russian Tsarlag earlier this year, when he covered a Yoko Ono song, and Yoko fits into the stew of influences on display here. His blog also has a "salute" section, which I appreciate both for the openness and sincerity of the gesture and for the musicians he credits.
(The other things that were available from Human Conduct when I made my order, the Moth Cock cassette and the Bathetic-released Dinner Music tape Tomb Of Comb, are also really good.)
Another one of the best shows I've shows I've seen all year was Alvarius B, Alan Bishop of the Sun City Girls, in Philadelphia. I am really into the lone performer these days, someone who does songs, who leaves enough space around them for the audience to violate, and seeing how they hold that attention. Alan doesn't take shit, stopping mid-song to yell "hey fuckface!" at two talkers in the balcony. That was around the time of the reissue of his 1996 double-LP, which I previously only had mp3s of a crappy vinyl rip of, but now own a nice double-CD with bonus tracks, one of which is a solo version of "CCC." In between the increased fidelity and witnessing the live performance I have newfound love for these songs, somewhat evil in lyrical content and deeply compelling. Hopefully the next new LP will contain the rewritten version of Bob Dylan's "Wanted Man" that slayed everyone in attendance.
(Other notable reissues/archival projects from this year would by My Bloody Valentine's EPs 1988-1991, containing a good deal of bonus tracks, and Can's The Lost Tapes.)
Another solo performer, but one with a completely different stage presence, was Angel Olsen, who kept an audience fairly enraptured with a fairly short set. Her new record, Half Way Home, seems more like a country record than Strange Cacti did, due to an absence of reverb that makes her phrasing more apparent, and the slightly embellished arrangements. I am really into these more uptempo cuts, which were fairly unexpected going in.
For a moment when I was trying to set up that Angel Olsen show, before I gave up completely and Elijah stepped in, I had this idea that it would be cool if that show had Bee Mask playing it as well, despite the completely different styles of music- Bee Mask makes electronic music, the sort of dude who is now playing European techno festivals, which seems like a bad fit to me, but what do I know? I like his Vaporware/Scanops 12-inch and the When We Were Eating Unripe Pears LP fairly well. Somehow the deep psych explorations of this material seems like a useful contrast to grounded songwriting, and while that live show did not happen, they can be juxtaposed comfortably besides one another in record player rotation.
Other electronic music that seems noteworthy is Golden Retriever's Occupied With The Unspoken LP, and Mouse On Mars' Wow. I'm looking forward to the Container and Three Legged Race records set for release on Spectrum Spools by the end of the year, as well as the Form A Log record, from a lebel unknown to me, that spawned this video. (Form A Log is a trio consisting of Ren of Container, Rick Weaver of Dinner Music/proprietor of Human Conduct, and Noah, formerly of Social Junk and presently of Profligate.)
In terms of rap music, I like the new Kendrick Lamar record, as well as the new Aesop Rock and El-P records. I don't like any of these as much as the rap records I've mentioned in other posts from this year (Death Grips' The Money Store, Lil B's God's Father and White Flame mixtapes, Lil Ugly Mane's Mista Thug Isolation). It's been a good year for weird rap, and the fact that Kendrick Lamar's record feels like such a triumph for classicism and conscious rap makes it seem like a good year for the genre all around.
It feels like a good year for music in general, actually, in comparison to the last few years: There is music getting press that seems actually good, and things that seem actually "new." As I've been writing this post I've been listening to Chris Weisman's 88-song digital release, Maya Properties, and just reached a point where the songs stop and a down-pitched voice warns that this is the point where things get weirder, farther out, potentially embarrassing. A very exciting prospect to consider if you don't like the other very exciting prospect of November 22, 2012, which is that the world will end in a month.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Change in service
I started a new blog, solely dedicated to comics criticism, so I will be posting that sort of stuff there from now on. Hopefully some Baltimore cartoonist friends of mine will be contributing as well, but they haven't yet. I still want to maintain posts on this blog, but I don't know what about. Anyway, the new place for comics reviewing is arecomicsevengood.tumblr.com. The place for jokes and weirdness remains Twitter, where my handle is @ownyouryogurt.
And again, I will still try to maintain this in some form. It might be a lot of music talk, but maybe I will try to get into personal essay writing. Although if you want to read that sort of communication with me, your best bet is just to have personal correspondence via e-mail.
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