2017 Year in Music: Bardo Pond - Under The Pines

Bardo Pond

Under The Pines

(buy from Fire UK; download or stream on Bandcamp; ok Spotify fine)

Longtime Philly psych vets Bardo Pond generally operate in primordial ingredients – brothers Gibbons' guitars scrape earth and sky, with occasional vocals and flute blowing in on the wind from frontwoman Isobel Sollenberger, all anchored by the wandering, trenchant rhythm section, shifting-yet-solid, a slow-motion tremor. Stoner rock doesn't sum up the parts; and "heavy" is too nice 'n pretty – Bardo Pond songs aren't born – rather, they seem to crawl up from ooze and just as often melt into the ether.

Under The Pines continues to distill their wall-of-sound in more concise fashion following 2013's similarly taut-yet-expansive Peace On Venus. The recording, done again homestyle, clarifies some of the murk, and places Sollenberger's vocals on near-equal footing with the guitars. A few heads rolled or roiled, I'm sure, but her mix of summoning squall and brooding chant operate here as an equal – so it's refreshing to hear that represented in the mix, not to mention the songs.

"Crossover" opens the record in classic Bardo Pond form – you fall right into a lead riff before going for a bit of a near-Zep turnaround. Sollenberger enters and all is well – this is classic rock for the psych set, guitars hard-panned and dueling in sprawling, painterly fashion. It's almost hard to believe you haven't heard this song before; though at a tidy five minutes, thirty seconds, it doesn't go on forever.

We get other Pond tropes, here, too – "Out Of Reach" is a slow, heavy dirge with a sparkling intro solo. The skies clear when Sollenberger enters, as guitars set to sparkle around the edges. The wordless chorus hints at the storm to come. Minutes pass, and guitars expand, rhythm section takes up more space unnoticed, like a glacier climbing down the mountain lip-first. Just when you expect them to wash away with the storm, they kick into double-time – a Hawkwind-ian or kraut-touch; or just masterly improv? Whatever. The Gibbons are set free here, and it all enters fog machine mode, an aural moss covering all ground, Sollenberger's chants occasionally piercing through the haze like mottled beams of light.

There are a couple miniatures – maybe excerpts from lengthy recordings? – "My Eyes Out" ends side A with a keening lead guitar that loops gaudily over a steady, forged-metal rhythm. The solo enters halfway through and they ride it into the clouds. "Under The Pines" is as close to scorched-earth blues as we get – a dark take on time or mortality, or maybe the upside-down version of folk standard "In The Pines". It's syrupy and stomping and slow, barometer rising, air thick.

"Moment To Moment" embraces a riff that's nearly from the front-porch, of a kin to Earth's take on country-doom (2008's The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull). Yet, with acoustic slide, it's bizarrely anthemic, it's crawling, muscular pace and near 10-minute length could qualify. We finally get Sollenberger's flute here, which floats in gauzily, but ends up carrying things across rippling sheets of guitar and torch-bearing, keening vocals.

"Effigy" provides an instrumental benediction to the record – and a welcome second flute appearance – a melancholy, tripped-out shuffle that's a counterpunch to the swagger of "Crossover". It's comfortable, richly textured, and conjures a wide vista of sound, that (I loathe to say) could even lure in a 'post-rock' fan or three. Somebody please pay these fine folks to score their film (did they do that before and I missed it? The price of an extensive discography). 

2017 Year in Music: Colleen – A Flame My Love, A Frequency

Colleen

A Flame My Love, A Frequency

(buy from Thrill Jockey; download or stream on Bandcamp; ok Spotify fine)

The struggle through limitation – or the forced stricture of self-imposing limitations – can produce great music and art. Look no further than budding songwriters making their most raw and intimate portraits via 4-track in a cabin somewheres; or Rick Rubin's career of forcing rich-celebrities-née-musicians out of their comfort zones to reinject honesty and authenticity as though it were a rare substance meted out by the universe in small doses early in one's life.

And yet – Colleen's particularly ascetic take on limitation stands apart in how it simultaneously defines her work, while also expanding its horizons – like how a pinprick of light can contain all of space and time. Nowhere is her exploration of the infinite more refined and pronounced than on A Flame My Love, A Frequency.

Her previous outing, 2015's Captain Of None pushed to the brink her use of medieval instrument viola da gamba (bonus points if you'd heard of it before that record) – by plucking, plonking, tapping, thrumming, and playing through an assemblage of effects, the largely-instrumental record had a narcotic, dub feel and a collagist ethos. 

Yet, after such an adventurous outing, she wiped the table clean – forgoing that instrument in favor of an analog synthesizer (Critter and Guitari Pocket Piano and Septavox) and delay pedal set-up that preserves some of the dub aesthetic while sounding completely of another universe. Opener "November" drops the listener straight into a music-box melody, a bit melancholy and halting, singular-sounding while preserving her unique sense of space and sound. It's entrance music to a world of Colleen's devising, elemental and pure, almost child-like.

"Separating" delivers you to that world – in this case, subaquatic, dripping tones provide a rippling ambiance that showcases delicate vocals before giving away to dappled, sunny synths that skip along the surface with a hushed, wordless chorus. It's a universe in miniature – almost classically revenant, but experimentally electronic in the way it plays with filtering, broken melodies, and effects to pull the listener further underwater. Warning: this track is all-consuming. Remember to breathe.

After the rhythmic workout of "Another World", which breathes needed air via a circular melody that eventually washes out, we enter "Winter Dawn", whose brittle march pierces the veil cast across the initial three tracks. Colleen's voice is near-crystalline here, intoning, "The world had nearly ended and the sky was blue. And I came home with a fistful of fear." There is a void, here, maybe an icy chasm – but there's also light being cast forward – I can't help but think things are always darkest just before the dawn, a stasis expressed brilliantly when the jigsaw melody pauses mid-flight near the track's end.

Things are a bit darker on the B-side. "Summer Night (Bat Song)" utilizes near-organ, droning sheets of sound to trap a childhood moment in a photograph of sound. There's yearning here, too – the sleepy, minimalist coda over which she sings, repeatedly, "Descending milky night..." while stretching and playing with the phrase – is as glorious as those soft moments when sleep approaches in darkness. 

"The Stars vs Creatures" carries forth the lunar feel – a descending, staircase of a melody again casts Colleen's vocals in starlight, this time relating a parable set in the natural world, all accelerating forward to an ascendant, double-time coda halfway through the song. "One Warm Spark" is another circuitous, effects-laden track to transport the listener to the abstract, earth-bound title track. Again, droning organ tones slowly bud into melody. Set atop the mix, the delineated vocals are healing, a balm & a promise, leaving the synths to slowly exit the atmosphere and tumble into space at sunset, a fairly jaw-dropping finalé if you've gotten your mind right.

I read a note from Colleen that referenced the making of this record, subsequent tour & attention, and stresses of travel combined to take a personal toll that would require self-care and attention in 2018 to recover and recharge. Sometimes it's tough to hear that from an artist – especially considering how we glamorize songwriters and creatives and expect them only to give, give, give until culture or society casts them away like husks. And yet, you can hear the life energy in  A Flame My Love, A Frequency – it's emotional undertow belies the simple surface of such a focused instrumental palette. Amazing, really, how such limitations can be seized to produce something so otherworldly and singular.

  

2017 Year in Music: Endless Boogie - Vibe Killer

Endless Boogie

Vibe Killer

(buy from No Quarter; download or stream on Bandcamp; ok Spotify fine)

For most bands – a single LP clocking in just north of 40 minutes would be a regular album. For Endless Boogie, that's reining it in; merely half the length of their previous outing, 2013's blues-choogle standard Long Island.

In the meantime, what's left of the rock establishment has disintegrated, passed on, or at best, aged ungracefully. What better time for Endless Boogie to grace our skulls with another fried pie of smoked boogie that wouldn't sound out of place on a Stones demo reel from 74?

...but then there's frontman Paul Major, erstwhile private press collector and ramshackle vocalist who'll make Tom Waits sound like Pavarotti. Major's voice, part Oscar the Grouch, part stentorian Western narrator, is up further in the mix this time around, and rather than playing second fiddle to lengthy jams, his non-sequitur, bizarre stories drive much of the record.

[photo by Shawn Brackbill]

On the first half, title track "Vibe Killer" roils along with interlocking guitars like "Marquee Moon" on 'ludes, casting Major's tough guy manifesto as lead amongst the hypnotic, looping guitar workout. A little nihilism goes a long way – this is 2017, and Major eventually points out, "Nobody remembers. No legacy." Even the solos feel succinct here (don't worry; they're not), occasionally peeling off into the ether, letting a little "I Wanna Be Your Dog" piano push the riff into the sea.

"Let It Be Unknown", at 3:45, is somehow the least single-worthy, a blues-y, wah-wah'd shuffle with Major playing his best creepy ingrate, spitting out the line "Give me a nickle / and I'll show you Don Rickels", which is just about funny enough to ruin the spell the guitars of Jesper Eklow, Matt Sweeney, and Major weave.

Things stay set to simmer on the A-side; even inclusive of the heaviest choogle on the record, the ne'er-do-well narrative of "High Drag, Hard Doin'" only lacks some found-sound broken bottles and Keef backing vox, and the vibrato solo lagging behind the already dragging beat is damn-near perfect, epitomizing the expansive sludge of Endless Boogie, replete with at least 3 fake-out endings where the soloist bends a note way further than he should, like a branch too green to snap.

On the B-side; the just desserts. If I write less, it's due to judicious headbanging. "Bishops at Large" cooks up a stew of background wah-wah and swampy piano – fetid and humid and richly redolent for Major to intone, "Bishops...at large" only to leave a pregnant pause long enough to imagine a scrappy fellow emerging up the hill of a graveled road, looking over his shoulder for the tell-tale sun-pierced haze of his pursuer. It all comes to a boil with Major's newfound "falsetto" – coated in distortion and down in the mix like a shorted-out CB, it achieves an effect similar to Lambchop's Kurt Wagner on Nixon's "Up With People". It sounds so good even though it removes all possibility of understanding what the hell he's saying. When it all drops out and the guitar riff percolates back in, you'll swear the Stones were reincarnated from that Some Girls plane crash.

On the back half, "Back in '74" is endless tasty biker riffs and velvety Rhodes that frame a (true?) story about Kiss. In case you were unsure, Kiss is fucking horrible – but rest assured this is probably the best song about them. The locked-in kraut of rhythm section Harry Druzd and Marc Razo is especially obvious here – the beat & bass all shiny like patent leather – and they modulate their volume so well for the quiet part of the story that you can almost see Major conducting the troops with a level palm. Would it were we'd all be so lucky to have a rhythm section as tastefully locked-in.

"Jefferson County" – minus the near-acoustic skronk of the opening – finds the Boogie at full-power, which makes sense given this'd be halfway into their typical running time. The intro fades into a three-chord jam that floats hazily over slow-cook drums. Major enter in media res, "And...ya keep it in a jar." He's at his best when he drops the listener into a years-long story that snakes forward like a river into a floodplain. The gradual pace suits the guitars best, as they find infinite permutations to rub shoulders with one another, only emerging from the morass to blessedly choogle for a brief moment before sinking back into the soil.

"Jefferson County" runs 11:42, but it feels like a minute or an hour, never in-between. High-level, molasses-paced hypnosis – if you can conjure it, you do. "Can you turn it on? Now...don't make no decisions now," Major utters to an invisible friend across the flames. Good for us, Endless Boogie still can, even if they've left the Herculean double-LP form to younger foes. Then again, trying to top your finest hour is a fool's errand – better to double-down on form, stoke the fire, and let the embers burn through.

Soft Landing

Hey there, it's been a little while. Ready for a brain-dump? These thoughts should probably all be their own post, but, well, I've given up coffee for nearly a year, and the cup I had this morning won't allow focused composition (either that, or my abilities have decomposed...).

(Precinct-level transit referendum results via UrbanIndy.)

• Americans are increasingly xenophobic due to development decisions made in previous decades. Most folks drive solo to work, drive solo home, and then exist in their castle or bubble, only interacting with a few people of choice. If Americans had to ride transit or walk through public plazas on a regular basis, we wouldn't so easily "otherize" huge segments of the population – Muslims, Latinos, the poor. So not only is suburbanization economically unfeasible, a driver of poor public health outcomes, and a development Ponzi scheme, but suburbanization = increased xenophobia. In the same way that traveling to diverse places widens your perspectives & engenders cultural understanding, so too does coexisting with a wider body of people. And this is coming from a natural introvert...
  
  Oh, hey – Indianapolis passed increased transit funding! Miracles do happen. The one good that came out of the last election cycle.

(Prins Thomas - Principe Del Norte)

• Electronic music is more diverse and exciting than rock-and-roll. I've been burnt out on almost all current rock-and-roll (except for a small slate of standard bearers from the 90s; which may invalidate my whole point) for more than a minute. But studio-engineered rock records lack almost all draw when they come from less-than-outstanding songwriters – few instrumental oeuvres and/or sound-fingerprints gel into je ne sais quoi – or, very rarely does the sum of the parts become greater than the ingredients. And, let's face it, most songwriters ain't that special. Have you read the lyrics to a recent Flaming Lips record? It'll make you junior high notebook look deep (though let's leave mine out of the equation).
  
  Electronic music, meanwhile, is incredibly wide open. From the near-operatic melancholy classicism of the latest Arca, to the brutal soundscapes of PAN releases, to the jazz/beat-set spanning the gamut on a single label from the brainy pop/soul of Karriem Riggins to the rigidly avant compositions of Deantoni Parks (and maybe I shouldn't even be lumping them into the open-armed barrel of electronica). Point being – electronic music retains better the ability to surprise and is more reliant on ideas and execution and often times (though not always) less dependent on 'songcraft'...whatever that is. I'd rather listen to a new electronic record I'm pretty sure I'm going to hate than the latest vanilla release from *cough*...you know who.
  
  Or – maybe my tastes are just calcifying and I'm not open-minded enough to understand 21st-century rock records. (I mean, c'mon, I just made & released one. On cassette. Shit!) Or maybe I just had my mind blown last night by a Prins Thomas record (though earlier in the same day, I was totally psyched and into the latest Bardo Pond).

(Get it? "Poor". They're not poor! They have phones & refrigerators!
The lack of empathy in this country is disgusting.)

• The Republican/evangelical white Christian (because, let's be honest – white folks, particularly Christian, are the only socio-ethnic group who voted majority for you-know-who) war-on-the-poor has crossed the line into absurd. Because you have a working refrigerator, you're no longer poor? Uhh...do you know any impoverished people? Work with them? All you need is a single (I know, anecdotal) interaction to know that being poor is far from a cakewalk. Just because we've sold our souls for cheap commercial goods doesn't mean that somehow the poor of 100 years ago were more noble, more hardworking, etc. Guess what? More of them also died in a gutter. Prayer is not a substitute for legislative action that drives and funds social safety nets. We're all a medical emergency away from bankruptcy...but, y'know, keep acting like 1950 is some kind of utopian fever (wet) dream.

Next time, let's keep the vibe more playful, okay? Here's a live boot for you to chew on. You can almost hear the snarl.

Warm That Sucker Up

Once a month, I gather in a plain room full of gentlemen in a circle of chairs. Hands in pockets or coats. Everyone with a bag, satchel, or case.

The rules are pretty simple – gather in someone's living room, basement, porch, or backyard, even. Hook up the stereo. [Note: this is the first thing I do when moving in. Even before unpacking boxes! Because how are you supposed to unpack boxes without jams?] Put a record on the platter – you gotta warm that sucker up. Yes, record.

This isn't CD club. It's record club.

(Jr. Bacon Record Club, October 2015, my humble abode.)

Next, put some bacon on the skillet. Probably a pound. Maybe three, depending on attendance. Write the attendees names on some scraps of paper, and put them in the hat of whoever has taken theirs off. Draw a name – that's who has to pick the first Perfect Side.

One record. One side. No pressure...just a perfect one is all.

There are different strategies for the side; some bring a single record, maybe something new scored at a thrift shop, a recent release, or an album recently listened to on repeat. Others prefer an improv approach; bring a few, feel out the flow of the evening, and pick a side that enhances the vibe ...or throws it for a loop. Give a quick introduction of your record: artist, title, year it was released, maybe a pressing detail or where you dug it out of a crate or who turned you on to it.

Put the record on. Cue it. Drop the needle.

Pass the album around – you gotta hold the art in your hands. Otherwise, you might as well be passing around an iPod. Cold metal is weaponry; ink and cardboard is art on canvas. The initial groove crackles and the music starts. Shoot the shit or put your head down and groove. Drink a beer or sit and stare.

Hear something you haven't heard before.

In the context of others it's fellowship; it's church with a cigarette break, communion with no priest. Someone's taking notes (maybe), but there's no boss. Everyone's on the level. Kanye to Kraftwerk, Penderecki to Purple Rain. Fifty sessions in without a repeat (...right?) – and then you've got another month to dig up your next gem.

[This post is part of Think Kit by SmallBox. Today's prompt: What new circles have you formed? Any unexpected ones? Did you start a book club or hang out in a tea yurt? Maybe you re-upped with existing friends. Explore your kumbaya moment from 2015.]

Keep It Modest

[Today's post is part of Think Kit by SmallBox. Today's prompt: We're all writing the story of our lives as we go. How can you make your story interesting in 2016? And if you can't see around the bend, it's okay to dream. Let's make 2016 one of the most riveting parts of our tale, shall we?]

I love planning trips, a meal (usually the day of...), and in the past...even a tour. But I also love living in the moment, wandering to wherever sees or smells good. I guess what I'm saying is – while I like to outline my own story, I prefer to fill in the details day-by-day. Here's a list of three modest things I'd like to accomplish in 2016:

1) Visit an island.

I've got Hawaiian in my genes (more on that later), friends and acquaintances extolling (heck, even living in) Iceland, and Amelia has family in the U.K. Did I mention sometimes I just want to get away? I'm not even going to pick an island right now – let's just say it's gonna happen, one way or another. Time to set up flight alerts.

(I mean, look at this. Photo via Jacinda! Hope it's okay I used this!)

2) Make another record.

Wooves has been sitting on a finished record (forthcoming PEEP – spoiler alert – which is totally my fault) for months. Not to mention, life has taken its toll on our writing & recording schedule. Three friends in different cities moving into their thirties...it's not worth making excuses, but shit gets busy and then you realize it's been 7 months since you played (a pretty dang good) show. But then the Universe hits you with reminders that ...well, creativity is important. And what better scene to embrace it than with two of your oldest friends?

(...the only known photo of Wooves performing?!)

3) See more live music.

While I'm on that wavelength...aside from achieving a life goal by seeing KRAFTWERK (not to mention a pretty sweet Madlib DJ set) – I didn't see a whole lot of music live this year. Indianapolis is still a flyover town for most artists that I seem to be actually excited about seeing perform live. Hoping to rectify that and start off the year strong by seeing two of my favorite current acts in Chicago in February: the previously written up Bitchin' Bajas opening up for the soon-to-be-written-up Holly Herndon. Needless to say, I'm pretty psyched – now to decide whether to roll the dice on Big Ears. Faust is calling...

(Just before Kraftwerk started at Nashville's historic Ryman Theater.)

2015 Albums of the Year: Seven Davis Jr. - Universes

[The second in my installments covering the year of 2015 in music. Peep the year-end list over at LUNA music, and read the first entry covering Bitchin' Bajas Transporteur here.]

Seven Davis. Jr. – Universes

If you know me even a little – you know I'm not (and have never been) a singles guy. I'm an album guy to the max. When I listen, it's to albums in order (with the lone exception being Amelia's iPod on shuffle on occasional car trips); whether that's on vinyl, CDs (hey, those are still a thing), digital (90% of my hard drive...), or streaming (I recommend ripping-and-uploading to Google Music rather than Spotify). So when I admit to being lured into an album by a single single, hey, that's high praise.

The single in question is "Good Vibes" by UK-via-West-Coast house-electro-funk impresario Seven Davis Jr., off his Ninja Tune debut Universes. I'd be remiss to not mention "Good Vibes" features a(n actual?) Brit, Julio Bashmore (nom de plume of producer Matt Walker) as the co-writer and lead vocal. Built on a thin drum sample (with conga!) and pitch-shifted keyboard loop, it doesn't take long to bring in the high-hat-happy house beat and funky bass. Bashmore's man-on-the-street vocal take, lax as hell (backed by cartoonish, lower-octave BGVs), makes the track, though – that and fat kick drum in the production, along with the killer breaks punctuated with wobbly synth. It begs to be blasted on, bass up, car doors and/or ass shaking.

Universes leverages the uptempo four-on-the-floor vibe with success on "Sunday Morning" and "Everybody Too Cool" – the former with a frenetic, repeated mantra that drills into your brain only to be relieved by spurts of wild, filtered keyboard soloing, while the latter laments the lack of dancing (hey, I've been in that room before) over a drum-line, loose-snare-sounding, hand-clapping beat while Davis, channeling his inner Prince, reaches for (and kills!) the occasional falsetto line over just a touch of synth/organ noodling, and a killer, if tastefully short, overdriven keyboard solo. "Mister DJ don't play this in the club / Cuz people don't dance no more / Everybody too cool for school." Not dancing to this jam would be a sin.



There's bloat here, though – the album is theoretically tied into a narrative package wherein Seven is communicating with a retro-robot-voiced computer, but these skits are so short as to be meaningless, though they do lend a George Clinton-esque vibe to the proceedings, one that Davis builds on by chameleon-ing his way through a number of stylistic changes, with varied results.

"Fighters" is the best of the (odd) bunch, a dub-specked ballad against the cult of violence and confrontation – not only a social statement, but just a damn good song, light oscillators/static providing noisy texture as Davis navigates the spacious track (that reverbed hand-clap, though!) with a soulful vocal take. After six months with this record, this may be the song I return to most. There's funk here, too, though not as 80s-shiny as Dam-Funk: "Try Me (I'll Funk You)" is as close as you'll get to a funk-battle-song, though it drags a bit on the back-end. "Be A Man" pairs an active, melodic bass-line over a speedy reggae up-beat – it's plaintive-sounding, about as yearning as a beat-forward, funky number gets.

But if too much adventurousness is Davis' vice – I'll take it. His debut is rife with earworms, melodic sensibility, and his own strange spin on future-electronic-funky-house-dub jams. Universes makes me think there are two paths forward – an ultra-refined, uber-pop record pulling from his various 70s & 80s musical heroes and mixing in modern electronic sensibilities; or a really far-out album that reaches for and achieves outer space, a record that screams indulgence. Honestly? I'd be down for both.

[This post is part of Think Kit by SmallBox. Today's prompt: Do you hear what I hear? Tell us about a sound. What do you hear in your house or at work?]

Stage Fright? Yeah, Right.

The domestic creature I have morphed into (sorry for clogging your feeds with pictures of a loaf of bread...) may not pass muster with the reality of my early twenties: more weekends than not, you would've found me on the stage (or in the corner of a room) with my brothers-in-sound, plying our woolly version of garage-psych-pop across the South...the Midwest...the East...the Plains...pretty much anywhere that would have us (and a few places that wouldn't). By my amateur count, not including practices, the number of shows I was physically present to play at exceeds 400.

For whomever is keeping stats: that's 3.7% of the nights in my entire life.

The halcyon days of thoughtfully rocking.

Fast-forward ten years or so: I took the stage twice this year. Twice. My percentage must've taken a hit. Those two performances though, would've been highlights in many past years, and included a magical aforementioned set with Athens, GA-based Circulatory System, and our seventh or so set at the annual Second Helpings Tonic Ball, which was ten feverish, sweaty minutes of Velvet Underground chord-bashing.

"Oh yeah," my body said, while gripping an ice-cold Hamm's in the overfull backstage room, "that's a helluva lot of fun." Which brings me to my realization for 2015: I like to play shows, and I should play more of them. And go to a few more, along the way...

But, like any artist knows, reality is an illusion unless you plan to go do something. So, I'm hoping a couple key things transpire that will be the impetus to sling some gear around in my hatchback and hassle my friends with a minimal amount of shameless promotion (just enough to let a hint of guilt into their conscience should they choose not to attend).

• a new Wooves record. Yes, I've talked about this before – the band formed from close friends who needed an excuse to hang out in a decrepit Eastside basement. Then, it turned out that we weren't that terrible (though, fair warning, it's still basement-produced-slacker-rock). Despite having but a single show under our belt (a year ago in October), we finally finished a second ten-song album, which should be out late this Winter in early 2015. And! We had a successful rehearsal, to quote a witness who was upstairs whilst we fogged the cellar with incense, Old Overholt fumes, and practice amp fuzz, "It sounded like there was a real band down there." That's basically a Christgau A+ for us. Springtime should see our new set unleashed upon the Illinois-Indiana highway corridor.
• some weirdo-skronk-experimentalism-turned-exercise-in-excess-and-restraint that gathers in a garage in-town to record noises to tape. It's a secret but it's not a secret. Rumor has it that a set will be carved out of the cut-n-paste spliced sound memories so that we may inhabit the corner of a stranger's party, or other such non-stage-space. I'm even contemplating a gear purchase for the first time since I had to buy a double-keyboard stand some five years ago.

---

Day #9 of Think Kit!

Goodbye, Shelf System

If you know me, you probably know I don't have a TV anymore. It seems to come up in conversation here-and-there. It used to be a point of pride, but now it's just a fact. We were moving – we owned a TV that wasn't that big, but was three decades old, and weighed as much as three of me – so I herniated myself getting it out to the curb, slapped a "FREE" sign on it, and washed my hands of having another screen...at least for awhile.

What is the focus of my living room, then? Well, I'm not as much an ascetic as I make it seem – this year I said goodbye to my old stereo set-up, and hello to a new era in sound. I'd been rolling with a $20 discontinued Nu-Mark turntable, Sony shelf system (with built-in phono input, as well as a dual tape deck and broken 5-CD changer) inherited from both of my brothers, and the Sony's particleboard speakers.

Here's what I ended up with:

First spin on the new deck was the new remaster of CAN's Ege Bamyasi. 

Because nothing else would do.

• Pro-Ject Debut Carbon – this machine is pretty much a minimalist work of art, so much so that often when I enter the living room, I wonder, "Did I just walk into a museum? Why are there dirty dishes on a coffee table next to that gallery display?" With minimal, heavy-duty, high-quality parts, a glossy black coat, hidden power switch, and slightly beveled clear lid, the real thing of beauty is the only bit of color: the Ortofon 2M Red cartridge, which produces the most detailed, spacious vinyl sound I've yet had the wherewithal to own. I cannot recommend this turntable enough if you are thinking about upgrading – it's worth the extra initial spend from the moment you drop the needle.
• NAD 7125 receiver – just a lil' minimalist 25 WPC receiver I snagged for $20, and is more than plenty loud for our room. I'm not a big classical or electronic/hip-hop listener, so this suits my frequencies pretty well without super detailed EQ'ing (though I may spring for one of those components next).
• Cerwin Vega D3 – these speakers are nearly as tall as my record shelf...almost too big for the room. But ran into a pair for $50 and rolled the dice. I still need to refoam them, but they were otherwise mint, and sound so much better than my old Sony shelf speakers that it's not funny. On either side of the shelf, they create a magic zone exactly where our couch sits. I've already given more than one Masters-level lecture on the audio aesthetics of Ege Bamyasi...is that a course I could charge for?

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Day #5 of Think Kit!

We're All Cavemen Here

Every weekday, in blustery, rainy, ocean-brined Brighton, a man leaves his house with everyday purpose. He gets into a black sedan, and, wipers on, drives a few kilometers to an anonymous office park, in a strip of anonymous businesses crawling with the detritus of laypeople. He gets out of his car, and goes inside for 8 hours.

At 5pm or so, he emerges, looking worked, a little fatigued, furrowed brow set over sunglasses, and gets back into the sedan. He drives home in time for dinner with his twin sons and wife.

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That man is Nick Cave.

 

Cave is an Australian ex-pat songwriter best known for his explosively dramatic turns fronting, first, the post-punk outfit The Birthday Party (who made everyday nihilists look like patsies), and afterwards, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds (brooding, literate rockists) and Grinderman (the penultimate sideshow id act). Yeah, a rock star. Who goes to the office.

It's not that I didn't know that artistic output takes work. I understand. I've watched close friends labor of musical works of love for years. I've watched Amelia painstakingly sew hand-cut banners for a staged photo series. Art equals work. 

Cave had a "documentary" (the beautifully shot 20,000 Days On Earth) that came out this year, that he scripted himself. Regardless of how much of the movie was "real" (the script dealt constantly with the push-pull relationship between self and self-creation) – there were some bits that really hit home.

After footage of the Bad Seeds at work in the studio, playing the repetitive, building, cut-off future-blues of "Higgs Boson Blues" – Cave opined about his songwriting process, saying, "You take two things, two ideas, and smash them together. When you see sparks, you follow them."

[That's what I got out of the quote, at least.]

Wow – though it may be a reductionist view of the artistic process, I prefer to hear it as empowering. Inside our double-helixes, we're all cavemen, smashing anything at hand together to produce work, art, life. We have our caves, and we chase everything except an alive dinner (well, some of us chase that, too). We dig through air, land, and water for glittery stuff (or its paper representative). 

We all have the same chance to create. Don't take it for granted – pick something up. Now pick something else up. Start smashing. Make art.

 

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Day #4 of Think Kit!

Think Kit #1: Year in Photos

I was thinking about 2013 this past week, and my brain said, "Dang dude, you didn't do that much last year. After all, in 2012, you quit a job, got a new job, went to Europe for 40 days, went to Washington for your brother's wedding, moved, and did a bunch of boring everyday shit in-between." But when I started actually thinking about it, I did cover some ground in 2013: the Year of Doing Shit (Better).

The following images are 97% of what has kept me mostly sane for the past 11 months:

The annual (Wooves) Chicago winter retreat wherein males venture

to the snowy Northlands, raise orderly havoc, consume bacon,

imbibe Belgian birthday brews, and reflect upon the aging process.

Amelia made many photographs this year. Here was the first 

of her showings, in Muncie's Gordy's Fine Art + Gallery.
Her photography also provided reason to visit...

...Portland. Top-to bottom:

–Ken's hero sandwich on ciabatta. Some of the best bread we magically

stumbled upon. I copped his book and my baking skills rose.

--Columbia River overlook somewhere near Multnomah. Nature's trifecta:

Mountains, Trees, Water.

--Prancing the Willamette somewhere south of the city. Temporarily

King of this Abandoned Isthmus.

It's true, Randy came to the Midwest. Tacos and bar-crawls
soon followed. Let's hope he comes back soon.
Or that we get out to Seattle soon. Either way!

Everything, Now! at the 10th anniversary Sunshine of Doom show.
This was a great night. Never knew those songs could sound
that good...I guess it's nice to know we improved in a decade.

Bread. I'm obsessed. And not just any kind.
Ken Forkish helped me take my stylings to a new level.
I probably ate this loaf in three days.

(Salted butter is the only kind of butter.)

Amelia prepped, peeled, sliced, and froze 80% of these peaches by herself.

And canned numerous other produce we were fortunate enough to receive.

All this in a house without air conditioning. Y'all are spoiled...

We lost countless brain cells this summer from heat exhaustion.

I'm not even sure I have digested California enough to write about it.

8 days, up to 7 dudes at once. Turning or nearing 30.

Pacific Coast Highway, San Fran, Venice Beach.

Redwoods. Ocean. Sky. Mountains.

Old friends. Older friends.

Hey! I booked a show for my favorite band, Landing.

It was fantastic. They were fantastic.

It was also the day I returned from California.

I ate a giant torta and zoned out to their drone-pop melodies.

Not only do we buy cars (well, just one) but we clean up, too.
Goofy prom pictures may have later resulted from too much

good food and good drink.

Chicago became a bit of a haven this fall.

We did a lot of walking and eating, the two

most important things in life aside from good friends

–which exist there in plenty. 

Amelia showed more photos in Ft. Wayne this fall.

We journeyed up for the opening, and stayed afterwards

to hang out with a great group of artists, creatives, and other 

adults who proved that getting out of Indy can be artistically refreshing.

Ft. Wayne, I take back all ill things I've said about you.

Oh yeah, I kept baking. My mom mailed me a reed banneton,

which may have changed my life.

Between Record Club, starting some shifts at LUNA,

pilgrimages to Reckless Records, and ... well, moving way
closer to LUNA – it was a heavy vinyl year.

We rang in Thanksgiving with my parents in Florida. 

2014, where will you take me? I hesitate to predict,

but hope that I can project continued adventures.

Out There, In the Yard: ...Wooves

Wooves started out as a joke, a riff; and a completely different name (abbreviated "D's P"). Two old roommates, friends from High School, that I didn't befriend till after High School–riffing is what we do best. Either everyone's life is a well-written absurdist comedy, or we really are the funniest group of males since the Blues Brothers. Rapier wits, and all that. Anyhow.

(The first EP. Crucial real Polaroid.)
We all love music. I've played in a band for years, as had Andy. In the meantime, Tyler had listened to more music than the both of us combined. It seemed only natural that, more than four years after moving out, now living in separate cities–now was the ideal time to make a record together.

(Breaks are essential to refueling your creativity. And tacos.)

Perhaps originally inspired by the album-in-a-month challenge, and then later inspired by late nights that began with pints and ended with Jim Beam Rye, we decided that we should try our hand. We were literate, students of rock and roll, played rock and roll–but aside from Andy, had never really written before. And certainly never recorded/engineered anything beyond aborted attempts at tape collage. The year of 30 was beginning to stare us down, and we were creatively unfulfilled.

(Writing is hard. Especially in a dark, dank basement. With curtains leftover from the 60s.)

In November of 2011, we locked ourselves in my basement with a drumset, some rudimentary amps, and a 4-track. We emerged with 7 tracks, I slapped a few overdubs on top, and we released them as basement demos in February. Somewhere in there, we decided, "Hey, this isn't as bad as it should be. We should probably get a real name." We made a pact to record a full-length by Thanksgiving 2012–with the caveat of not writing anything aside from the spare weekends during which we'd bury ourselves in the makeshift basement studio for 8 hours.

(Jim doesn't judge. But he does make singing easier.)

"Wooves" (a Hoosier-esque mispronunciation of "wolves") won unanimous vote over Belgian drafts, frites, and a sausage plate at the Hopleaf. Though Andy tried to naysay the following day, it was sealed. Over the coming months, we had four or five sessions, including a two-day affair that challenged our creative wells, busted our equipment, constantly edited, revised, and revisited, increased my drumming skills, and, against all odds, resulted in a batch of songs that we were surprisingly...proud of creating. By ourselves.

I hope I'm not exaggerating when I describe it as illuminating.

No, they weren't anything glamorous or refined, just honest portrayals of the creation of something from naught–forming glass out of sand is impressive, no matter how crude your glass. Oh, and it was a lot of fucking fun. So much so, that we've already started planning for LP2, while firming up release plans for the first one, YAWN.

(Part of SmallBox's ThinkKit project.)

january'd

Woody Allen's Alice

2010 Oscar-winning documentary, The Cove

Daniel Kalder's absurd Russian travelogue, Strange Telescopes.

Eating Mud Crabs in Kandahar, compendium of food+wartime writing.

"Lo Boob Oscillator" off of Stereolab's compilation, Switched On, Vol. 2.

"Seneca" off of Tortoise's LP, Standards.

floating somewhere above: april 2011 mix

Click here to download.
1. Cluster - Hollywood (from 1974's Zuckerzeit)
2. Liliental - Wattwurm (from 1978's Liliental)
3. Ash Ra Tempel - Light Look at Your Sun (from 1972's Schwingungen)
4. Don Cherry - Mali Doussn'Gouni (from 1973's Relativity Suite)
5. The Feelies - Original Love (from 1980's Crazy Rhythms)
6. Songs: Ohia - Coxcomb Red (from 2000's The Lioness)
7. Jackie-O-Motherfucker - Bone Saw (from 2003's Wow!/The Magick Fire Music)
8. Times New Viking - Teen Drama (from 2008's Rip It Off)
9. Archers of Loaf - Fabricoh (from 1995's Vee Vee)
10. Jackie Bernard - Jah Jah Way (from 2005's V/A: Studio One Roots 2)

I spent April meandering out of yet another Kraut phase, evidenced here by the first three tracks. Cluster's "Hollywood" is a melodic take on their most accessible work, Zuckerzeit, which was really a combination of solo efforts on the part of Moebius and Roedelius. Unlike the abstract soundscapes of I and II, here melody and rhythm abound, proving that yes, machines can be fun! Liliental's "Wattwurm" is a watered-down version of this, on a record with a slightly island/world pastiche filtered through German jazz/prog-heads. This track crawls along in an oddly satisfying way, continually toeing the line of being too fey, never quite stepping across.


Contrary to what this picture implies, machines can sound fun! Also, cool little article about the passing of Max Matthews, arguably the origin of computer-based music composition.

Ash Ra Tempel's "Light Look at Your Sun" starts with a pastoral, plucked acoustic, whispering like a spring thaw---naturally, things get heavy, and out of the storm wails a lightning bolt of a solo. Yeah, it's your standard dynamic change recently appropriated by any band wishing to adhere to the worst-named subgenre ever (I'm talking about you, post-rock); but it comes across here as bluesy and static-filled, a sense of unease filling the wide swaths of nothingness that comprise the majority of the song. In the same way, Don Cherry's "Mali Doussn'Gouni" evolves from a simple shaker rhythm into rapidly chanted gibberish, musical in its atonality. Of course, leading directly out of that is a fantastically colored cornet solo--a collision of a blank-ethnic rhythm & vocal with equally borderless, piercing jazz.


The fantastically quilted Don Cherry album cover for Relativity Suite. If you have a spare $150 lying around, you're welcome to purchase this gem for me.

I'm not sure what hole I've been living in (oh, wait...that's right), but I hadn't heard The Feelies till April, when I happened upon some recent re-issues. Kinda like the Talking Heads on speed, guitars and drums buzzing around, with a vocalist who generally overpowers anything else going on (though not to David Byrne's extent). Don't be fooled by their Vampire Weekend-cover, which only proves that everything old is new again. "Original Love" is a thin slice of early-80s new-wave/punk that is about as chunky & poppy as they get on Crazy Rhythms. Not that I'm complaining... Solid as well is "Coxcomb Red," which devastates with its simplicity of chords, its insistent rhythm, and above all else, lyrics that hit like hammers. Jason Molina always has a penchant for emotionally invested anti-pop, but this spare arrangement of voice & acoustic may rise above all other of his fine examples. Just a stunning achievement of focus, this song has purpose.


Songs: Ohia - "Coxcomb Red"

"Bone Saw" is an arid neo-desert instrumental, slow-moving in a very deliberate way---indicative of the Jackie-O Motherfucker controlled improvisation mindset. This really reminds me of Neil Young's score for the Jim Jarmusch Western movie, Dead Man. It gets a little more fleshed out, adding meat to Neil's bones. Times New Viking's "Teen Drama" cuts through the heady jams like a knife, albeit a pitted, rusty, anthemic blade. I hesitated to even put anything from Rip It Off on this mix, since my relationship with this record is hate/love, with an emphasis on the former. The sheer volume, everything levelled so that it comes across as superheated & painful; is usually too much to bear. But that pop hook, that plaintive riff that lies at the center of "Teen Drama", it's too much to deny; as are the boy/girl harmonies that reside in the blown-out chorus. This is pop at its most painful, and it's a song I keep going back to.


The halcyon 90s...back before you had to cultivate an image in addition to your music. The Archers recently reunited for a tour, by the way.

Archers of Loaf's "Fabricoh" pulls back from the edges, just an dirty alt-rock standard with a one-note bridge. Eric Bachmann's next-best sing-along to all-time classic "Web in Front," the coda here will have you on the balls of your feet whether you mean to or not. The mix closes with "Jah Jah Way." Roots reggae always excels at its simplest, and this Jackie Bernard number is sublime genius, simple enough to sing, bouncy but not too fast, perfect for the creeping humidity levels of the Midwest. Simply a groove that cannot be denied.