Angel Olsen - "If It's Alive, It Will"

A raffle to see who becomes the new center of gravity. The earth is done with it, the moon doesn't want it, and the satellite river can't decide who's gonna get it, so it gets put out to the people of the world. Put your name in the hat, it costs two bucks, and get a chance to become the next center of gravity. The thing to which all other things are drawn. "I'm gonna have moons," says one contestant. "I'm gonna have orbiting bodies, if you know what I mean," says another, a funny uncle. "I'll probably turn into lava," says Michelle, not knowing she's the winner. When the clock struck midnight, over Ontario anyway, on the last day of the raffle, all the world couldn't help but turn their eyes to Michelle. Their feet dragged along the pavement, or they fell out of their beds. Bookshelves were suddenly spilled, water sloshed out from sewers, buffet sneeze guards became food-catchers and everything turned weird-side up. Michelle did indeed become lava, but it took about a hundred years.

[Buy the heavy-hitting Stranger Cacti or a lovely song off the new Chicago Cassette Compilation]

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Jason Ajemian & The HighLife - "Feels A Ton"

"Scarp the shimmer! Trunch it, bresh it, don't kerry to the truncheon all the bresh in the gimmle." Kevin's eyes widened as he looked at Fine Jimmy Stein, the host of Cook It! with Fine Jimmy Stein, speaking nonsense. Kevin was left alone for the first time by his boss, today he was floor director for the whole show, in charge of switching cameras and keeping the shoot on schedule. "Um..." he half-interrupted Jimmy's string of insanity, but Jimmy didn't notice. "Fetch it, don't etch it, hillen the moneydaise, nobody gets the bomb on tinny, not a tay." The camera operators looked at Kevin, Kevin looked at the camera operators, then back at Jimmy. "Um, Jimmy?" he spoke louder, trying to cut through. Jimmy stopped, breaking his rhythm. "S'manner?" Kevin was not used to this level of authority, "Um, is everything okay?" "Okay bitty? No bitty." Kevin looked at the camera operators for help, but they were not helping him, he was on his own. "Uh, you're not making any sense." "Who tense?"

..."What?"

"WHO TENSE? KENNEL FUNNEL. CASH, BUD!" Kevin was getting frantic, he was sweating, "Do..do you want some water?" "NIP!!" He was getting yelled at, Kevin's mouth started to turn down, his chest was hurting, his eyes were tearing up. Kevin was now in a stand-off with Fine Jimmy Stein, with his beautiful coifed slick and his casual rolled plaid, on terms he couldn't even grasp. Kevin thought, if he takes one step towards me, I'll chuck this clipboard at his face. And just as Jimmy was about to come to Kevin, to really talk this out, Kevin lifted the clipboard but was stopped by a hand on his shoulder. It was Howard, the old switcher who sits in the control room. He had left his high perch to come down to see what was going on. "Kevin," he said, with kind eyes and a flannel that smelled like buttered popcorn, "Don't worry. Sometimes people just go this way. Just shoot the show and let the audience be the judge. Sometimes this just happens, people lose their sense."

[Buy]

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A friend of mine, and very talented young man, Kyle Gatehouse, has made a 90s-mood video for 90s-mood band Reversing Falls' song "Doom Beach". here.