Nowhere

Keep building up those lines
Till they’re weighing me down
Keep saying those things
That I’ve been thinking but can’t get out
Keep remembering those things
That I never got to do
Seriously
It’s like I can feel your hands
On my shoulders
Right now
Right fucking now
You’re touching me
And you’re nowhere to be seen
I can’t get enough of you

It feels like ages since I posted about what music I've been listening to. Luckily, the last month has been pretty fruitful in that area. Hence:

International Broadcasting Bureau – Memory Lights EP

Fresno California’s The International Broadcasting Bureau brand of intensely hypnotic, waves of sound that wrap themselves around my brain and massage it until I feel inspired and ready to write stuff. Seriously, this stuff is special. It creeps in this often really unsettling way, it evokes memories I’ve never even had. It makes me think of David Lynch, and a more sombre Animal Collective - both good things, duh. The new Memory Lights EP is really great. Check it out.




Sunn O))) – Monoliths & Dimensions

I’ve been waiting for this one. I mean, like, reeaaaallllyyyyyyyyyy waiting. Having been in the work for some time, O’Malley and Anderson’s new album is finally out. The buzz around it has been pretty big. There was a really excellent article in The Wire recently that made that little bit more excited. And the album doesn’t disappoint. I was excited to hear the progression that the band and others had talked about in the lead up to the album. The first track sounds pretty similar to where they left off on their last record, but from that point on, it’s pretty incredible to hear Sunn O))) really transform and evolve over the next hour. It’s really impressive how they do it, too. I mean, by the time the final track – the absolutelyfuckingincredible Alice is playing: there are new instruments and arrangements in there that Sunn O))) have never used before. Their success in these advancements is that it doesn’t sound out of place. They’ve managed to structure and arrange their album in a way so that the widening of their oeuvre sounds so natural that the evolution feels logical. Sunn O))) have made the best record of their career so far.




Sonic Youth – The Eternal

OK, so regular readers will know that Sonic Youth are one of my all time favourite bands. So, any album they release is always a pretty big thing for me. They haven’t really put out an album that I dislike. There are definitely some that don’t do it for me as much as others, but still, often their weaker material is still a lot stronger than some band’s good stuff. However when SY’s stuff doesn’t completely rip my face off with brilliance, I always feel kinda sad. The last album – Rather Ripped – was pretty cool, but it lacked something for me. There were moments of absolute awesomeness – Pink Steam and Rats being the two standout tracks – but this is the problem with a band who has been going for so long – it’s sometimes hard not to listen to them against their history. The album previous to Rather Ripped had been Sonic Nurse – perhaps my favourite album they had ever produced, so I guess it was natural that any album to come after that would perhaps pale a little bit. But yeah – the new one: The Eternal. It’s ace! There’s this really exciting tension that they manage to spark with the first track and it stays there till the end. The Eternal is sharp, punchy, and resonates with this really important energy. It’s amazing to think that they can still be this good. Sonic Youth sound as vital as any new band, more vital even. They continue to be and always be. Look at the fucking title, you know?




Lotus Plaza – The Floodlight Collective

This is the first album from the solo project of Lockett Pundt – the guitarist in Deerhunter (more of them below). I won’t go into this too much because in the very near future there’s gonna be an interview with Lockett on this blog, so I’ll put this album in the spotlight a little more then. But for now I’ll just say that this is dreamy, gorgeous and overwhelming. It takes you into a very particular, beautiful world for its duration. You should really give it a listen. More to follow on this blog very soon.





Deerhunter – Rainwater Cassette Exchange

Deerhunter never disappoint me. They really are doing something special and important at the moment, more so than the majority of other “indie bands” I can think of right now. I also like how they keep going. More new material. Deerhunter are making the most of their time in a way that’s inspiring and just extremely enjoyable. The great thing is that they still seem to be able to retain incredible quality control. I just love listening to a group of musicians who you can just tell love creating and doing what they do. Awesome.

The Breeders – Fate to Fatal EP

It was great. I was in Paris talking with Kiddiepunk. We were talking about The Breeders. We were both raving about them. I said something about the Safari EP that they put out in the 90s. I said I wish I could go back in time to when bands like the Breeders released really awesome self contained EPs, separate to their albums. He said something like “ask and you shall receive”, and told me that there was in fact a new Breeders EP about to be released. YESSS! And a few weeks later – I have it in my ears. The Deal sisters really can do no wrong in my eyes (or any or my orifices for that matter). This EP catches them in more sombre mood overall, but their moments of sadness have always been like stars and honey to me. Get it or be damned.

TM x

HOLE

She thinks she can rely on him
Because he’s not moving either.
She thinks she can rely on him
Because he says she’s not there.
She thinks she can really rely on him
Because he said something dirty
That made her feel feminine.
He’s not thinking about relying on
Anyone aside from the cheek
And chat that’s got him this far.
He thinks he can rely on her
Because there’s this hole that
He’s made more complicated
By telling everyone how important
His grief is.

God Land

God Land – the debut feature length film from Aspen Michael Taylor makes the astute move of eschewing the more obviously tumultuous events of a natural disaster, choosing instead to focus on the aftermath.

The effects of a devastating storm have left two brothers stranded alone to wander a beautiful wasteland. Obviously linked by an incredible bond, the brothers begin to navigate their surroundings, disorientated and stunned, like lost souls attempting to find their way back to bodies that they were not yet ready to leave.

The scenery provides a painfully sympathetic landscape for the lost, haunted feel of the film; and yet within that Taylor recognizes the importance of finding beauty in the most tragic of places. The brothers – a teenager and his younger sibling explore the almost dreamlike world that they have been unexpectedly dumped in – they walk as if they are still in shock, but still they play, laugh, roam and stomp around. There is great sadness, but we are reminded that within that there is always hope.

There is no clue to where the brothers were before the storm, and there is no clue to where they are going to end up. They exist in a world that escapes binary – things are not defined, nothing is sure, and characters float bewildered by the pure force of their existence, as if the idea of a grey area has been made physical and transformed into the earth upon which they tread. Fear and darkness are tempered by the sheer magnificence of survival, of youth, and of wonder.

Long, lingering cinematography and a heartbreaking score make it impossible for the viewer to be not be drawn in and completely immersed, and help to frame the intense and sometimes overwhelming universe that Taylor has created. Prepare to enter the God Land.

*Aspen Michael Taylor kindly let me see an advance copy of this film, and it's not left my brain ever since. It seriously is a masterpiece, an incredible, incredible film. When the film is more widely available I'll put an update on here, and let people know where to put their eyes.

Attention span

Maybe it’s your attention span.
I knew that someone else must have been in touch with you.
You stopped calling, the texts diminished.
The time we arranged to meet
And for three hours
I sat waiting
Because -
Just in case you did bother.
There’s no reasons why you shouldn’t do those things,
Just because it hurts me it doesn’t make it wrong.
I have no say over that stuff, no matter how hard I wish that I did.
I want to write about things that I can’t really work out how to describe.

The good fucked up

I’m watching a boy on an escalator.
He’s the one on it.
I’m the one not on it.
He’s about the same age as a character
in a novel that I’m writing, maybe a little younger.
He looks tired,
but when he walks off
and past
a couple
of emo looking girls
he changes.
He’s taller in this more slumped way.
His chin goes up in this shy way,
Flicks his head so his hair looks
A little bit more fucked up
, the good fucked up,
And maybe he sighs?
I dunno.
I had to stop staring.

LEAVE

It isn't a case
of just trying to be sincere
but when someone's ass
is right there
open in front of your face
it's hard not to just
blurt out what's on your mind
all the jealousy
I'm going to forget
and just suck love
into you
and let my fingers
slide in and out of you
and let my tongue
dip onto you
and feel sweet
and crazed
and feel
lost and hazed
over by the magnitude
of those two cheeks
leave handprints
leave redness
leave ghosts
and lose both of us
and everything
and let your gentle moan
strangle me
and drown me
and leave saliva
and tiny matted hair
and go back down
and try to remember
how days are meant
to run when
the world isn't
you in front of
my face

8 photographs of Ash Stymest, nothing more, nothing less

gif.

I want this to date
I want these words
To feel
Like gif. files
Sat next to CGI and holograms
I want the intent
To be covered by
Your thin surface

HAPPY 50th MORRISSEY!

Stand-by

If you leave the screen
For too long:
The screensaver starts;
Family photos, old
Holiday snaps.

If the computer’s been
On stand-by:
I wonder if they waggle
The mouse like I do.

Too soon to see your face
Out of the blue.

The artists

“I suppose they’re artists … in a way.”
“They have no idea about the full picture.”
“Yeah, but that’s what makes it special. That’s why they’re so …”
“Are you afraid that you won’t sound deep if you just say that you like them because you want to fuck them? Would that go against the image of yourself that you want people to see?”
“Fuck you.”
“Raw nerve?”
“Fuck off. That says more about me than it does about you.”
“No – if I wanted to say something about me, I’d probably say: ‘wow, I really want to fuck them’. But I don’t know if I do. Maybe a little. But I’m ok admitting that.”
“There’s more to it. I’m being sincere.”

I woke up from a nightmare convinced that today is the day that the whole world is going to fucking die

I wanted this to say something else

Only just starting to
See what I got myself into
Because now I can’t say what I want
Because I know that you’ve caught a better
Idea of me

Have

He’s sitting on his own
looking at photographs.
Unless you were him
you wouldn’t be able
to make out what they were.
If you could,
you wouldn’t understand.
He’s hunched over them.
From his eyes,
all he can see
are the pictures in his hand
and the others
just on the floor
in front of where he’s sat;
the rest of the room
is a blind spot.
His hands are full of something
that he wants but can never have.
Maybe he used to have it,
or he had it at one time
in his past that now just feels sore.

Fingers

something slipped through your fingers
and now you can't make out what it was

Cling

I'll cling, I'll cling,
Like I've never
Held onto anything
In my life.
I'll cling to you.

Marguerite Duras

Last night my brother woke me in the middle of the night. He said he needed help. My dad was lying unconscious in the garden. He's pissed himself. Things are going downhill. Unless someone wants help, then there's very little that you can actually do. This is running me into the ground.

Silence

There was this one time
when I asked him something.
I'd noticed a scar on his arm
that hadn't been there
the last time
I'd seen him naked.

I pulled him into me
so his head rested
on my chest.

I think we almost talked
about what we were
afraid of.

There was something peaceful
in that next hour,
in the trembling silence,
even though the sadness
felt like a million white sheets
with the eyes cut out,
kids pretending to be ghosts.

We were better off
keeping shut.

When someone tells you that you know them inside out

So much of the time
It still feels
Like you’re still here
But in this weird way where I know for
Definite that you’re not
It’s a contradiction
I suppose because I’m missing you.
At the worst times
It feels like the shittiest
Internet slash fiction that you could
Ever hope
To find
And I’m taking real things and replaying them
And then reorganizing the order and then
Just making it all up based on that
So things are happening
The way they never will
But I wish they would.

tape hiss

kiss
like
early 90s
tape hiss

Hands

His hands are flaking,
Bleeding, cut, hard,
Rubs them together,
Bits fly off,
He's decaying
In front of my eyes.

Sad

- I don't think I've ever felt this sad.
- What are you going to do?
- I just feel so sad.

There

That table
That coffee
Those people
That breeze
That fuzzy head
That stubble
That hour stretched

I'm watching you

I’m sitting here watching you.

I’m sitting here watching you because I want you to stop doing the bad things that you do.

I know that by sitting here watching you I’m taking a risk.

But I’m sitting here watching you anyway.

I’m sitting here watching you because even though I know that we both have different types of loneliness, I know also that we both have precisely that.

I’m sitting here watching you from a different room.

There’s a room in between us but all the doors are open, so I can see straight through.

All I can see of you is your feet.

You keep tapping your feet.

You keep moving your feet.

You keep crossing your feet.

You keep tapping your feet.

You keep moving your feet.

You keep moving your feet.

You keep tapping your feet.

You keep moving your feet.

You keep crossing your feet.

You keep moving your feet.

You keep crossing your feet.

You keep tapping your feet.

You keep tapping your feet.

You keep tapping your feet.

You keep tapping your feet.

You keep crossing your feet.

You keep moving your feet.

You keep tapping your feet.

You keep tapping your feet.

You keep moving your feet.

You can’t see that I’m watching you.

If you realised, or got suspicious and looked through the open doors and the rooms that are separating us, then I would stop and pretend that I was not watching you.

You can’t know that I’m watching you.

That’s the risk – that you’ll see me watching you.

So I pretend that I’m not watching you.

I work out all these ways that make it look like I’m not watching you.

I know that things are not going to end in a good way.

I know that things are not going to end in a good way.

I know that things are not going to end in a good way.

I don’t want to watch you anymore.

I don’t want to watch you anymore.

I don’t want to watch you anymore.

I don’t want to watch you anymore.

I don’t want to watch you anymore.

I don’t want to watch you anymore.

AIM

As he logged on
And his screen lit up
With icons, he heard
The sound of
A slamming door.

It was the sound
Of his friend
Logging off, leaving.

A little icon
With the word BYE
Flashed next
To his friend’s name
Which then turned grey.

He wondered
What he had done
To offend his friend.

All he had said
The last time they spoke
Was something about sex,
Something about
Being depressed,
And something about
Letting go of things
He hadn’t yet
Thought through.

How much did Madeline know?

Madeline, how much did you know?

Things keep sneaking up on me,
Things I couldn’t pay attention to before
Because you were the only thing that mattered
Other stuff
Even stuff connected to you was
Blurry, peripheral

I guess I had blind spots

I make jokes with friends
About times I’ve been insulted
And about a week later
I think of something funny to say
Back to the person who was rude
Delayed reaction

It’s like that
But with something
The doctor said

Two and a half years
That’s what the expectancy is
For someone with your condition
He said it in this way
Like he was surprised we didn’t know

The other people in the room
Were no help
Both blinkered by their own
Way of seeing this stuff
Differently to what was best for someone else

Who knew this stuff?
Something else you forgot to tell me?

I hear about you being refused
Acting like someone else
My fingers can’t keep up with my brain
Which in turn can’t keep up with my thoughts
Even though they’re nothing great
Even though they’re empty
Apart from soggy memories of
Someone that now just resembles
Other stuff that I didn’t get to feel
Properly when I should have
Been given the chance

Madeline how much did you know?

Many of the things I saw today were horrific

“Fuck – that’s intense.”

“Yeah, I mean, wow. I mean, god – what the fuck?! You know?”

“Yeah – that just blows my mind. It’s fucked up. It’s kinda evil, right?”

“But it’s also … you know …”

“Yeah … like … sexy …”

“Yeah.”

“Man.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“This shit’s just so fucking wild that it blows my mind. I mean … seriously.”

“Wow.”

I felt compelled to write a review of this record:

Loren Connors and Jim O’Rourke: Two Nice Catholic Boys (Family Vineyard)





Jim O’Rourke and Loren Connors have collaborated several times. It seems strange then that this is the first time that I’ve got my hands on a CD baring the fruits of their many times playing out together. A quick Google search suggests that perhaps it is one of the rare times that the fruits of their labour have actually been released (I managed to find one other release from the pair playing as a duo). So I guess I feel lucky that they actually saw fit to release some of this stuff.

Regular readers of this blog will be aware that I am already a huge fan of Jim O’Rourke’s music. I’ve done a couple of days dedicated to his output (including one that I curated for DC’s blog a while back), and have often lauded his interest in the cross referencing and cross wiring of various musical motifs, questioning the cultural baggage and lack of imagination so often lazily stuck into all too many records by artists who are all too ready to rest on their laurels. In short – he’s one of my favourite musicians ever.

For those who may not have encountered Loren Connors before (although I’m guessing that some of you will be familiar with at least some of his work), he like O’Rourke has been a mainstay of the improvised/experimental music scene for a long time now. Although less familiar with his work than I am with his partner’s on this record, I am very fond of some of the stuff that he has put his name to over the years. In particular, I think that the Hoffman Estates record that he created with fellow experimental guitarist Alan Lichy (which O’Rourke actually produced), is a masterpiece; a gorgeous suite of songs released by Drag City in late 1998.

Two Nice Nice Catholic Boys is a trio of pieces culled from several hours worth of recordings that the pair amassed on a tour of Europe in 1997. The titles of the songs – Maybe Paris, Or Possibly Koln, and the final track Most Definitely Not Koln, suggest that perhaps the specific location that these recordings were made were not preserved as well as the works themselves.

Geographical musings aside, what is clear here is the mammoth talent and skill that both players bring to the fore. So often with improvised music, it is easy for those involved to aimlessly bash out any old noise and then claim it to be high art. With O’Rourke and Connors cumulative background adding up here, their experience and true fondness and excitement – their need to do what they do – stands out, and places them leagues above any accusations of dilatantism that are sometimes aimed at free music composers.

On each track O’Rourke and Connors weave in and out of each other, racing ahead, lagging behind and catching up with each other in the most glorious ways. Sometimes each separate sound gets lost in each other, like waves of vibrant, multicoloured gloop, warmly resonating.

It’s good to have concrete evidence of two of the most important figures in vital music, doing what they do in the way that only they can.

Dusty

I only took those photographs last week.
Already they feel dusty.
They’re digital.
I think if they were real, printed on proper
paper then they’d still feel wrong.
They don’t feel real,
Is what I’m saying.
A piece of gas catching a reflection
Of itself.