Willis Earl Beal - "White Noise"

Evelyn has trouble sleeping. She's been on the phone until one or two in the morning, every night, with her ex. He will cry and beg for her to come back to him, for things to be "like they were". And she doesn't know what to do except let this stuff wash over her. She's 17. She cries with him, and says "I know," the way her mother says "I know" when Evelyn cries in front of her. And eventually he gives up, having gained an inch or lost two, and his tear ducts scrape like sandpaper, and he feels utterly spent, his heart racing and his lungs empty, he says goodnight. And she has to get up for school in the morning, so she takes walks in her mind to help her fall asleep. In her mind she imagines getting up out of her bed, putting on her boots and closing softly the front door. She walks down past the tall hedges and around the corner through the kids park. Through the parking lot to the Becker's, and in her mind she buys a scratch ticket that wins 4$. She can vault over whole blocks or zoom out to see the whole city. She deposits herself in a seedy part of town. Dangerous and poor. She walks around feeling happy and scared, finally surrounded by people with real problems. She wonders what 'dirty' really means and imagines being with a drug addict. She imagines the pulling, the heaviness, the gravity of it all. In her mind she gets hit by a car, it goes right through her, and the license plate says "thug". Evelyn can't wait to finish high school and move out on her own. [Buy Acousmatic Sorcery]

[Willis Earl Beal's website. Write him and he will draw you a picture. Call him and he will sing you a song.]

Wavering Lines (youtube rip, if you, like me, wanna keep this song)

Miguel - "Adorn". He was a flinty lover, parts of him dusted in stone. Elbows, knees, soles of feet. They walked side by side, brushing shoulders, and his skimmed sides set off sparks. Little shiny sparks. It made her laugh. "There you go again." He never wanted to talk about the sparks, the flint: he was embarrassed, she thought at first, but then she realized he wasn't embarrassed at all. He just didn't want to talk about it. He looked at her with a look all full of tremors.

[Miguel's all exquisite rosy earthquake and maybe the best thing in R&B right now.]

Lisa Jaeggi - "I Had to Lie" A pretty little song, acoustic guitar and a trio of murmuring ghosts. Lisa Jaeggi has a thing that is worth so much: a singing voice. She uses it so well, here - singing the word "lie". Singing it as beautiful and seductive as that lie must have been, showing us the way we would have been fooled.

[this is an old song by Lisa Jaeggi / listen to more]

(photo is of Utah's Newspaper Rock)

Theo Wangemann - "Otto von Bismarck (October 7, 1889)"

The past didn't speak to Edmund, it barked at him. His great grandfather, Georg, was a lunatic, which isn't a nice word, but a nicer word would be an apology. Georg had three kids and then, according to his great grandmother's letters, "left forever in a flurry of violence." , in the late 1800's, he moved to New York City and lived on the streets, getting arrested for drinking and fighting and public blasphemy. Edmund's grandfather, Martin, had set himself on a journey to find his father when he was 19, and when he wrote home, the only mention of him was "a man who claimed to be Georg, joyless with a sunburnt face, but he looked so unfamiliar I thought him a liar." Martin himself went a little mad near the end of his life, writing a long, racist manifesto about how the government could fix all its problems. And Edmund's father Peter, now leaving a message on Edmund's voicemail, sounded doddering but still seemingly in control. "I just want to have email, that's all I really care about, a way to make email work, call me back." Edmund listened, hand cupped over one ear, in a bar and wondered if it were possible to inhale mental illness. Or to exhale it.

[more about a cylinder recording, the only known voice recording of a person born in the 18th Century, via the wonderful Gemma James]

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Lykke Li - "Time Flies"

"A good song to find out you've got AIDS to." Howie. Howie was a jerk with a crooked smile. But, if there were some situation (imagine a tattoo of God pointing a gun to your head) where Edmund were forced to list his "best" friends, however unlikely or incomprehensible, Howie would have to hold the top position. He was Edmund's single buddy, he'd been single throughout all of Edmund's marriages, and the two reconnect most often right after one relationship or another falls apart. Tonight they were listening to music and smoking weed in Howie's basement. Howie had spent these last 15 years collecting, cataloguing, mythologizing his life. He had stories of debauchery ("Ed, what do you think FMFF stands for? When you see it written on a napkin?") and humiliation ("he came at me like that metal spider in Wild Wild West") and horror ("first my mouth, then my nose, then my eye!") and triumph ("a Coke never tasted so good, let me tell you") And although Howie was two tiny notches away from intolerable, Edmund often sat listening in admiration, because unlike Howie, he'd spent the last 15 years searching and finding, and cherishing and spit-shining and taking for granted and squandering and losing and trying desperately to forget.

[Buy]

BJ the Chicago Kid - "His Pain (ft Kendrick Lamar)". A treasure and devotional. Soundwave reinvents a sample from Black El's "The Ride", and Lamar finds the bassline, the feeling at its heart. He elevates his three minutes, earns them, telling his story in the blue-goldish glow of stained glass. Questions of God and fortune are not easy: anyone who skips and gallops with this stuff is not thinking hard. Note the care of Lamar's revelation, the melancholy shiver of his doubt. [Pineapple Now & Laters is out on Feb 14]

Damien Jurado - "Museum of Flight". When I did the math, I'm pretty sure Jurado was the artist by whom I own the most records - and so he is quantitatively my favourite songwriter. This raises the stakes. After the disappointment of Maraqopa's lead single, "Museum of Flight" is much more like it: an airy, darting beauty. In years of great, rough folk music, Jurado has often tried to mix things up with electric guitars. Here, he changes everything, just everything, in a much simpler way: falsetto, organ. It's as if he's moved from the woods to the plateau - through the telescope there's just cliffs, surf, open sky. [Maraqopa is out on Feb 21]

(photo of Oscar Pistorius and girl by Andy Hooper)

Xiu Xiu - "Born to Suffer"

Edmund alone. Reads an article about a teenager, looks like Evelyn, hospitalized for eating only chicken nuggets for 17 years. She had chronic fatigue and shortness of breath. Possible that eating healthy doesn't get you much farther. Checks the weather, with no plans of going outside. Checks facebook pages in this order:

Jen (3rd wife)
accused him of being mentally unstable, he replied "I've never even burnt toast in my life". Someone (Jean Guipta, unfortunate, hateable name) has posted a picture of Bruce Dern with a quote from Mohammed Ali, it's essentially meaningless. "Jen is now friends with Allan Hough." Allan doesn't seem to live here.

Evelyn (eldest daughter)
the most exciting page. Her three closest friends, Amy, Carla, and Devon mostly populate this wall. With cryptic posts like "puppy supper" (3 likes) and a video of Kurt Browning skating to Casablanca (comment: "I want that suit")

Alison (2nd wife)
if Edmund's mentally unstable, Alison's gotta be off the charts. Not a lot of action here, mostly motivational realizations as status updates. "I can do exactly what I can."

May (new girlfriend)
Why she comes so low on the list is a mystery, but Edmund takes comfort in that. It could be worse. Not much here, just lovely pictures.

Carolyn (1st wife)
actually enjoys a visit here. She's cross-country skiing. She's taking pictures of breakfast. Her father Kevin will post strange things ("Got it!") and mostly she spends her time liking things related to Evelyn.

Watches porn (anything with emotion is too depressing, anything too mechanical is a nightmare, it's usually an unsuccessful venture). Takes shower (sitting more often than not). Eats food (chocolate first, followed by anything else). Gets dressed (same as yesterday will do).

Edmund walks and sees dogs and children and snow. And thinks about sunlight and whether it's really as powerful as all that.

[Always Pre-Order, always]

--

ALSO: see Xiu Xiu's rabid political action request. Sometimes it feels like Xiu Xiu lives in a world 3 years ahead of ours, in which things have gotten much worse, and he's fighting at that level.

SATURDAY: RatTail is finally releasing their LP with a show and party at Double-Double Land in Toronto.

Hooray for Earth - "True Loves". The notion with the laser-guns is that you'd get this device, point it at someone, and make that someone disappear. They'd be detonated, demolished, turned into spray. The first laser-guns were gigantic, big as rooms, but the scientists were certain that they'd improve. The laser-guns would get smaller, small as guns, and space-cowboys'd be able to carry them in holsters, swaggery. Unfortunately the laser-guns never got smaller. The technology just didn't scale down. So we haul our laser-guns, big as rooms. in wagons the size of dance-floors. They are heavy and cumbersome. They are impossible to get into position. Instead of shooting people, we usually spend our time orienting and aiming our room-size weapons. We chat and mingle. We fall in love with each other, we laser-gun operators. We are incorrigible, we're like a village, and we're very happy. [buy]

Waters - "For The One".

1. WORK OUT THE RULES.
2. THROW YOUR ANVILS.
3. CATCH ANVILS (if appropriate).
4. DECLARE WINNER(S).

[buy]

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Both of these songs come to me via the blog Hunt & Gather, whose Some of the Best Songs of 2011 That You May Not Have Heard Yet is the best such list that I've encountered. Not just because of the little unspoolings prose, but because the songs are great! And many of them I hadn't heard! Andrew likes the sorts of songs that I like, and if you're like us you'll like them too. Besides Waters and Hooray for Earth, my highlights are Nomadic Firs, One Room, Mr Little Jeans, Gross Magic, the War on Drugs, Dirty Beaches, Quilt, Purity Ring and Yohuna & Adelyn Rose. Go forth and enjoy.

Edmund has written three suicide notes in his life. No one has seen them but him, and he never got so close that he even attempted any of their promise, but still he wrote them, actually on paper. And he thinks about them sometimes.

Carolyn,

I'm sorry for all the trouble. I don't like putting up with me either. Hopefully Evelyn only has my eyes.

- Edmund

He thought of leaving it under the windshield wiper and remembered wondering if she would throw out his CDs or not.

Ali, this should do the trick. -E

Written on the back of a bank statement, indicating a zero balance, because he had transferred all his money into her account. He ate a burger while he looked at it and thought about how people of other generations than his spent their lives fighting wars.

"There was obviously something else going on. It's not your fault." "No, I didn't, and yes, it was."

He remembered feeling their weight in his hand. It was like building a weapon. It could take any shape, it could be any strength. The only dissatisfying thing was having to shoot the weapon into the air without getting to see if it hit the target. There was a hand on top of his.

"Ed?" It was May. "Hm?" "What are you thinking about?" He smiled. "You. Always you."

Digital Leather - "Sweet Cheeks"

[Buy Too Beautiful to Work]
[Buy Modern Problems]

Actual Water - "La Violence sur les Champs-Élysées". At first it seemed like a regular charge, an army with pikes and muskets marching down the boulevard. But as they passed through the tulip gardens, the soldiers began to change. Musketmen blurred into pikemen. Generals became their uniforms. Greens, blacks and pinks seemed to smear together. There was still violence in the crowd, still gunsmoke and pride. But this wasn't a gang of gathered patriots. This was a hideous, splendid, multi-limbed thing, galloping through broken petals.

[Actual Water are from Toronto. They make lo-fi paisley pop, like a beautiful broken 45. Their new LP is out today / bandcamp / video / album release party at Toronto's Sneaky Dees, tonight!]

Augustine Enebeli Olisa & The Black Arrows - "Isiche". In a week of many beauties, this is the most beautiful thing I have heard. Shadows, starlings, looks in lamplight. The tenderness of the horns, the kindness of the guitars, the sureness of Olisa's voice. Fumbling and happy, I resort to old metaphors. ...the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down Jo me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. [out of print]

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Unlikely solicitation: Do you live in Russia? I am hoping to make the journey this summer, to research my book. I'd love to connect with readers - please get in touch! The only for-sures on the itinerary are St Petersburg and Magadan, Siberia, which brings me to my second question. Magadan. That is a very faraway place - for me, at the edge of the known world. And so I'm working very hard to try to find contacts there - would-be friends, friends-of-friends, friends-of-friends-of-friends. Do you live near Magadan? Do you know someone near Magadan? Do you know someone who might know someone near Magadan? Family, friends, former research assistants? If so, I would be very grateful if you'd email me.

(image source)

Zafari - "King Masaru"

At the Science Museum with Frank. He likes the buttons. He and Edmund walk the halls of snow-tracked carpet, and it feels like there's an unsettling kind of presence in the air of things, a sort of spirit in the stuff. It's early on a Sunday, in the hours before Frank has to go back to his mom, and the museum is not well-attended. The dinosaurs with their heads up in the darkness and the ducts, seem to bob and weave like boxers, the palm leaves seem to sway in time. The old trains seem to heat up, and shadow passengers seem to stare and hum and smoke. In the military section, a giant tank suddenly has a taxi sign and a driver in a cloth hat, arm slung out the window. The ring game and the motorbike circle and the gravity machine all seem perilous this Sunday morning, like crooked carnival games where you lose way more than two bucks a try. Miss the balloon, you'll be going home in a sling. Look sideways at an ex-president or the tallest man in history and you'll be wishing you were back in your mommy's arms. Edmund kept his coat on the whole time, and he wondered if Frank cared that they barely spoke.

[Buy]

(image by superhoop)

Lower Dens - "Brains". Like a skeleton opening the door and welcoming you inside, and he shows you a good time, with interesting guests & tasty snacks & the fancy kind of gin, sitting right out on the counter, and you forget he is a skeleton until it is time to leave, and he reaches for an embrace, and your arms are around his ribcage, and you smell that smell like chalk, fresh snow, old earth, and you realize that he is not your friend.

[website / Nootropics is due May 1 on Ribbon Music]

Reversing Falls - "Curse This Place" (Song removed at band request - for now!) You do not undo a thing by saying, F*ck this thing! You do not destroy a land by damning it. Reversing Falls grit their teeth, charge their guitars, but they know they cannot unmake the place they are cursing. It is bigger than they are, crueller, fiercer and louder and more motherfucking killer. That is what makes it worthy of cursing. As a band cowers in a basement rehearsal space, chugging, singing, spending one guitar-pick after another, the city stands permanent and beautiful around them. Its skyline is ambivalent, and its snowplows, and its nighttime spotlights, skimming the clouds. Curse the shine on this diamond, curse the love in these clutching hands.

[website for this riffwave stuff / bandcamp / Reversing Falls are from Montreal / Southern Souls video for "Curse This Place"]

(image source)