AIDS Wolf - "Teaching to Suffer".
"It's like I've spent the past two years in a room with petroleum poured over the floor, brown sludge, and I can't stand up without falling down, slipping and skidding and smearing into the ground. And, like, I got used to this. I got so brainwashed and used to this that I treat it as normal, now. My tongue lolls out of my mouth and I plunge all over the place. One of these days Francis is going to break up with me and it's like I'll have an exit and I'll be staggering all over the open city with the same heaving shit-stained lurch."
"Is it really like that?"
"I don't know. I'm still figuring it out. I'm meeting him for dinner."
[Montreal's AIDS Wolf release two albums this month. "Teaching to Suffer" is taken from March to the Sea, the band's final studio release as a quartet. Buy it here. They will also be releasing a 12" with remixes of their cover of Throbbing Gristle's "Very Friendly". Pick that up here. On Saturday, AIDS Wolf will be playing a lunatic noise-ridden show at L'Envers, with Black Feelings and Pink Noise. $8.]
The Wilderness of Manitoba - "Manitoba".
"I'm trying to work up the nerve."
"What nerve?"
"The nerve to ask."
"The nerve to ask what, Francis?"
"To ask her uh. To uh. To ask her to marry me."
"Really?"
"Really."
"You're going legit."
(laughing) "I guess I am. It's been two years, you know? And things are sorta great."
"Sorta?"
"No, they're great. They're great. She really gets me. It's beautiful. We're like two hearts holding hands."
"Two hearts holding hands?"
"I just need to get out of debt first."
[buy]
The Tragically Hip - "Escape is at Hand for the Travellin' Man"
"On those drives, they were so long. Through trees just like this, they remind me of it. I would just think about my mother dying." Jane C. smokes with a squint, her stocking feet up on the dash, a ghostly yellow light on her face. Jane S. drives, hunched slightly towards the wheel, both hands grip, she smiles, "You didn't listen to the radio?" "You're so far north up there," Jane C. takes a puff, blows it lazily towards the crack in the window, "You don't get any stations. On a lucky night you'd get Coast-to-Coast, but I just stopped trying after a while. I had one tape, Never Mind the Bullocks. And it got tired fast. Yeah, I would mostly just think. About if I got there and it had happened, or if it happened in front of me, what I would do." Jane S. lowered her high-beams for a passing a car, and let the silence hang in the air, and coughed from it. She checked the fans, at the right level, checked cruise control, 110, oil, fine, RPMs, sure, thermometer in water, middle, is that good? Flash. Raise the beams again.
"If you knew how things ended between us, would you stay with me or would you let me go?" Jane C. nipped the whiskey that sat crooked in the cup holder, on a wet receipt. "How does it end? Badly?" Jane S. had to look down a bit to look Jane C. in the eyes. "It ends how it ends. But if you knew how it ended would you stay with me, or are you just hanging around to find out?" The silence was now a fully present thing in the car. It sat between them, on the arm rest, like a ghost. Like the way the ghost of sleep would sometimes lie between them, penetrating neither, itself a restless thing, holding their eyes locked in the darkness, some sort of silent guessing game prayer breath-holding competition. If a deer comes out of the woods, honk first, then slow, then swerve. Or never swerve. Right, never swerve.
[Buy]
Sarah Harmer - "Captive". If you turn on the radio and hear a pop-rock song, pop-rock with that hyphen glinting, then the only thing you want is for the pop-rock song to be exquisite, exceptional, obvious and extraordinary at the same time. Sarah Harmer has made a perfect 2 minutes 33, smally special. The country's radios are ready; quick, while it's still summer. [buy]
Count & Sinden - "Hold Me (ft Katy B)". Wobbling dumb, head over heels, grasping at coattails, glad. [buy]
---
This essay at FourFour introduced me to, and sold me on, Katy B.
Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All have been gobsmacking me, this weekend.
I'm doing a reading at D+Q on Sept 21, as part of the fall launch for Maisonneuve magazine. See you there?
Mean Wind - "Gleam Leaf Green"
In an interview that never took place outside a gig in Hope, Carolina, Joel Tunnet, lead singer for Ginch Mob was covered in a thick paste of beer and coke sweat, and gave the following speech, half to a handycam half through a megaphone, to a bunch of fans he kept referring to as 'looters of the spirit': "Some people call me a revivalist, I say fuck them! I'm a SURvivalist! I bring water forth from the earth, I bring beauty forth from these speakers, I bring noise through the filter in your heads, I drag it through like cheesecloth and it's all dirty when it comes back to me. You know what grey water is?! I'm not a revisionist historian, man, but I do have a correctile dysfunction, I can't help being right! Hindsight is 20/20 and I'm way ahead of all you motherfuckers, so I can see it clear as day, this ship is going down and I'm not gonna go down with it. You all can quit bending over 'cause I'm done, I came, I'm gone, and you loved it!" He says more but the squeaking of the megaphone distorted it beyond salvageable. He's a genius. [Free. Oh yes.]
-------PALETTE-CLEANSING SILENCE-------
The Frogs - "I've Got Drugs (Out of the Mist)"
"Fuck him, fuck him if he wants you to, show him a good time. Get him drunk, do what he says, talk to him, fuckin' listen to him for fuck's sake, that's what he wants most of all. I mean, he's an alien for God's sake, I know it's not cool to call them that but that's what he is goddammit. He's an alien from outer space, plain and simple. And he works hard, he works hard so your kids can go to school and learn all the shit they learn and you can get your teeth taken care of, and your hair taken care of, and your goddamn tits taken care of, so the least you could do is listen to him when he talks. Take him to Joey's, get him a meat stick, take him rolling, maybe check out a Shakes Hall or somethin', fuck, I don't know, just show him a good time. You know what it means to show someone a good time? Do you really know what that means? Make eye contact with him, dammit, that's important. I know their eyes are all fucked up, so screwed up and disgusting it makes you wanna puke, but make eye contact with him, that's important. Smile. Fuckin' smile, that's important. Comment on what he says, have something to say about the things he's talkin' about. You know this is all common sense shit, but it's important, some people don't even know to do that stuff. And you're good at it, hoo boy. Baby, you are good at it when you want to be. So turn it on, baby, brighten up his day, his week, hell, brighten up his goddamn year. He could use it. And you could use it too, you look like you're still hung up on that dirtbag you used to call a husband. Show him a good time. And fuck him if he wants to." [Buy It's Only Right & Natural]
(image of the great Tune-Yards in Glastonbury)
Abner Jay - "Depression". The way the blues can be a power, a force, a lodestone in your chest that sends you plunging through space. Imagine a ship that has no cannonballs, only heavy hearts; the black powder booms and they sing away over the waves, crack timber, splinter bone. My heavy hearts have sunk a thousand ships. Whole navies foundered, sit now at the bottom of the sea. And I am on my flagship, my lonesome flagship, with every sail unfurled.
[Abner Jay recorded another version of this song, visited here / buy]
Camilo Diaz Pino - "Scott Pilgrim (Plumtree) - 16-bit cover". I enjoyed the movie, but this is better. And it's better than Plumtree's original. It takes the chugging angst and just lets it go. It forgets every detail, forgets the clutched hopes and back-story. It is what it is, fragile and bittersweet, nostalgia without irony. It accomplishes the same thing, maybe, that Bert Jansch used to do; only today an acoustic guitar has different valences. And this cover sounds different, now, than it would have in 1995. And I'm a different person, now, than I was when I was young.
[this comes via YouTube / with every thanks to Matthew Perpetua]
---
For those who don't follow me on Twitter, I made a mix for the end of August. It is now September, but you can probably still enjoy it. Download here (1h14, 107.5mb), and track-list (spoilers! wait 'til after yr first listen!) here.
[photo source, taken about a century ago]
Young Bruce sat tear-eyed in the corner and sung
With voice sotto, his knees pulled up to his chest,
"The Good Lord's love has left me nigh wrung,"
He looked out the window, he'd forgotten the rest.
Young Bruce's parents were no longer around,
His father a victim of helium madness,
His mother disappeared without nary a sound,
So the maid cared for Bruce, with her few scraps of gladness.
Bruce prayed every night for a change to arrive,
"Take my soul, my Good Lord, do not keep me alive,
Lest you pluck me from wand'ring this dark wild wood,
Please God grant me leave of my childhood."
Youth was a failure according to Bruce,
He would much rather die than live stuck as a kid,
His soul a steam engine, his body a mere caboose,
His soul hot baked beans, his body merely the can lid.
When he wished one hot August, his prayers warm as blood,
The bark of a far dog happened right at that second,
A hope in Bruce's mind had started to bud,
He looked in the glass, God had answered when beckoned.
That night was a turbulent sleep for the young boy,
He tossed legs and arms, and turned to and fro,
Dreams of God's perfect and almighty ploy,
Swam out from his head and were beginning to show.
When Bruce woke the next morning, the dog was now near,
Barking outside the window, barking right in his ear,
His bed felt like a matchbox under his back,
The floor sagged like a hammock, the walls were starting to crack.
Bruce looked at his hands and his legs and his feet,
For they seemed the same, it was all else that was smaller,
But still the house shook with his heart's thund'ring beat,
There was no denying, he was a good twelve feet taller.
He tried to see the looking glass, his neck craned with pain,
But decided better not peek, lest he get sucked inside,
He was read this very story again and again,
By his fair mother's breath as she lay with him bedside.
But he had eaten no muffin and this wasn't a story,
He had drank no damn potion and had no crumb trail,
Bruce looked up at heaven and said, "I wish you'd ignored me,"
And poked his head out the window, looking quite like a snail.
Bruce dragged 'round that house for the rest of his life,
He'd wanted to be 'grown-up' but could now take no children, no job, and no wife,
Orphan Bruce had reached God, which is far more than most,
Only God had felt guilty, and so tripled his dose.
The Good Ones - "Sara". Sara, look here. Look this way. Yes, you with the clear eyes. I call you Sara. I will hold up this twig, this maple stick, and make it a wand. Swish, swish, be mine. I will go to the sea and draw shapes in the sand. I will call my cousin, the astronaut, have him etch your initials into the hull of a satellite. Also he will etch my initials, and a crude heart. I will hope and pray. I will corrupt the soothsayer and bribe the fortune-teller; I will scheme and I will cheat, Sara, I will do whatever I have to do, to make you look here. This is how we have always done it, heroes like me. It is not always enough to be a champion. You have not looked at my medals.
[The Good Ones are from Rwanda / Kigali Y' Izahabu is out November 9 / more information]
Ô Paon - "Masks". A man lives in the west wing of his house. In the east wing is the library. The man spent the first third of his life becoming rich. He spent the second third of his life building his library. He travelled the world in search of philosophy, allegory, picture-books. He met collectors and archivists. He traded gold coins for thick tomes. He spent it all. Now he lives in the west wing of his house and in the east wing is the library. He does not leave the west wing. He is too frightened. The last time the man stood in his library he looked at his books, every one of which he had read, and he found himself faintly realising something. He was faintly realising something about himself. Some wisdom these books had taught him - he felt this wisdom turning and shining over his own shadow. It was ugly. The man fled. He hides. He walks the rooms of the west wing and tries not to remember the thing he faintly realised. He is not sure what judgment he almost reached. He suspects he is a monster, or a pervert. He is not sure. He does not think about it. He does not think about what he faintly knows.
[buy the A)B)C)D)E) EP / I haven't yet heard the new Courses LP]
(photo via Horses Think)
Swans - "Reeling the Liars In"
This song is about justice, doled out by the guilty. Punishment on all sides, reciprocal ruin. I am attracted to this attrition, it shows dedication, loyalty, grit. Recently, I heard one 12-year-old say to another "pain is only temporary, quitting lasts forever". Yeah, the fact that it lasts forever is what makes it so good.
[Buy]
Fantasia ft. Cee-lo Green - "The Thrill is Gone". While the memesphere somersaults for Cee-lo's other song, I'm letting this one swing around the wooden frames of my apartment. The production's classic, hot, with uncowed drums; Cee-lo raps (and I've always preferred his rapping to his singing); and Fantasia sings with every confidence, every clear-eyed certainty (earlier this month, long after "Thrill" was recorded, all this had slipped). It's one of those rare songs where the verse is stronger than the chorus, gold-knuckled. With one glance over her shoulder, a knock-out. [buy]
Keri Hilson - "The Last Time". In these last singing weeks of Summer, r&b remains the thing (along with Smog's River Ain't Too Much To Love), and I'm loving the "1 Thing"/"Survivor" stop-stutter of this one, Hilson slipping sighing through picket-fences. It's a song pleasantly lacking in metaphor: she tells us it's the last time with her man, until the next time, and the song's fittingly ambivalent, part love-song, part dumping-song, trapped in the stretched-out impulsive right now. [website]
---
I last wrote about the Luyas for McSweeney's (describing a show documented here). While they're playing with Twin Sister and Bear In Heaven early in Pop Montreal, the band are also raising money for some crazy installation thing later in the weekend. Donate here to help make it happen, replete with a dancers, artworks, and a film by Vincent Moon. But besides all that, it's a chance to get the Luyas' exquisite debut for almost nothing, plus original portraits, t-shirts, et cetera. (Their new album drops in January, I hear, with a bigtime label.)
Speaking of the Blogotheque kids, they just posted a new Adam & the Amethysts video, with Montreal cemetery and raccoon, shot two days after Adam and I almost died in a car-crash. There's something very true in this "Bumble Bee"'s sudden strangeness, the flat and post-traumatic sunset. (Another film from the session, including an eerie empty rue Ste-Catherine, went up earlier this summer.) [Why aren't these at the Blogotheque site yet? WTF, la gang?
In here it's a different world, in this world there's no Lady Gaga, there's no Ceelo, there's nothing fun and sexy. It's a damp dark basement, it's exposed brick and paint over paint over paint. You could take a core sample of the air in this place, and you'd see a rainbow of colours, the rings of age. There's no fresh fruit or new books, it's all mouldy old cast-off and dried preserves. And the lights buzz a noise that ruins your hearing. Take your pick: watch or listen, you can't have both. [Buy]
The Harvey Girls - "Smile Like Gwynplaine"
I will not argue over the merit of those minor chords, the moaning chorus. They are like that guy, when you're playing keep-the-beach-ball-in-the-air, they're that guy that pulls a fakie like "oh, I'm gonna let it drop" but he's got it the whole time? They're like that. [Buy
(image by Hilma af Klint)
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