Archives : all posts by Dan

Thank You Rosekind - "Grow!"

After it rains, in the white morning light that goes diagonal off the soft ground, the leaks begin to show. They puff out like little geysers. They spring up victorious like wet flowers. And of course the tree lies wilted in the middle of it all. A twisted mass with a rope swing somewhere in there. And somewhere in there young Marigold who should be swinging but instead is trapped. All the leaks must be sealed, carefully patched one-by-one, in order for the center tree to stand. Crawling on my belly it's my job to fix them, as I curse the squirrels and jaybirds. A spool of rubber patching the size of a vinyl record, tools fixed to a neck choker and stuffed in straps in my hat. After a drought like this, nice day after nice day, it can take a week to fix all these leaks. I slither humbly like a snake in the white morning light that goes diagonal, and I'll only be happy if the tree rises. [free]

Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments - "Fire In The Swimming Girl"

In the version of the future that could only have the name We Went Underground, where internet real estate is the most profitable and corrupt business in the world, where an uplink is a meal and a hug is an open bracket. A strung-out, scarred and dusty Lifter, a hired pair of fingers in the realm of the flipper-handed, sits down at a terminal desperate for information. He types in every note, every word of this song, and it begins to form a picture, a photocopied old picture with someone holding their hands in their sleeves, an off-the-shoulder beauty whose pixelated face still couldn't be made out. It reads "insufficient data" and the Lifter slams his palm against the side of the screen. A pain shoots up his wrist and he goes for a beer in the shower. [Buy Bait & Switch]

(image)

RatTail - "Gasmask"

Ahh, wind. Finally, wind. This song carries hawks, splays Moroccan flags, wrecks '97 speed boats, spreads nature's seed, float. It dries hair, dyed, cheeks tear-stained: dried. It's the thinking point of golfers, lick their fingers, point out the sky. It's callous, unplanned plane trip, it's a bumpy ride. The carpet's either hiding a rotting floor, or magic. Hear the agh!, the end replying, "Wind! Don't forget, me too!" [coming soon from Unfamiliar Records]

Lonnie Young, Ed Young - "Chevrolet"

A retaliation against a retaliation. [more Alan Lomax] (thanks, Benjamin!)

(image: Getty)

Spank Rock - "Baby"

My hands are sparkling. My skin is separating from the bone, puffing out slightly, a gasp inhaled and held. My head is an arrow, my brain a direction, my mind a map and I can see X. Taste is shut off, touch is just clouds, smell is forgotten, don't matter, wind air. My stomach leans forward, to hear better, ears throbbing. My ribs perched like dark birds, trembling at the ready. I think I have an idea. [Buy]

The Soul Sisters - "Wreck a Buddy"

A boy of indeterminate youth checks the mail on his tip toes. He pulls out a wad of letters and makes the universal ka-ching sign for "yesssss!" and runs inside. He sneaks past his mother, chatting tea-side with her friend from down the street, and takes the stairs double-time to his room. He rips open the envelope addressed to Filipo Domenicano, in a deep, expressive cursive, and slides its contents from within. The paper smells of incense and is yellowed, most likely tired from the distance it had to travel. The letter is shorter this time; they've been getting shorter:

Filipo,

You drive me mad. Why do you not return my letters? I burn for you. Today at the market a man told me he wanted to cut my hair off to put on a statue. It was the closest I've come to coming in a year. I need you. I need you with me. I need you inside me--

Dennis stopped reading. He was losing his breath. He put a hand behind him to steady himself and accidently jostled his bookcase. His tin Jesus, from First Communion, came toppling down with a crash. He decided to pre-empt any attention: "I'M OKAY!!" He caught his breath, closed his eyes for a moment, opened them and kept reading.

Downstairs, his mother and her friend continued to have tea. [Buy]

Air Review - "America's Son"

The statue talked. It looked at me and said: "I've cut the world." It was a parkette, a measly patch of grey-tipped grass on Severin and Kiln, that had a little gravel-bed bench, a few unwild flowers, leant like tired mannequins, and this statue. Sir Morgan Plank, Count of Regent Grand and its surrounding territories. All it said beneath his name and station was a one-line description of his life: "responsible for the swimsuit and the plea bargain". The swimsuit and the plea bargain. I read this and wondered which came first. But as I sat with my egg salad and salt drink, on lunch from my occupational happenstance some would call a 'job', I looked up at the patch of sky left kindly by the scrapers and thought about if I sat here all my life, like this grey-tipped grass and these blue-eyed flowers, if I would last longer than a couple of weeks. And then it spoke. "I've cut the world," it said, clear as the bell in the unseen church that rang at 4 each day. The pigeons all looked in unison. I stared blankly at the face of Sir Morgan Plank, creator of trunks and ratting out your friends, with his concave pupils and his raised right hand, and said, "Pardon?" but of course he didn't reply. I took it as a sort of apology. How lucky, I though, this ghost. At least he has an outlet. [site]

(abandoned WWII fort via Photography served)

Jordan O' Jordan - "Lever, Leave Here"

Servo click. Toast to spin, the buttered side. Coffee slick, filtered funnel, orange juice optics. Pulp. Solar gust, wake walk, soft jazz on the radio to ease the waking mind. Refrigerated salt, spread gall button, pear sliced in a fan. Spin track, tank treads squeak on linoleum, the sound of a shower. Timing is a loose envelope, stretched habitually by tired humans. "Work won't come to you, you know. Up and at 'em." The chipped paint wall doesn't reply. [Buy the lovely Drawn Onward]

Fred McDowell - "Shake 'Em On Down"

These clothes feel like a skipping record. This rope (skipping) is holding up my clothes. And these waves are buzzing my head, crashing my head, clearing my head. Doesn't this heat feel cold, some heat indeed. [Buy the Alan Lomax Recordings]

(image of the Electric Man)

The Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation - "Watch 'n' Chain"

STOP don't go inside. COULD be thugs in there. I know you're sick of nickle-diming penny-pinching, but just listen to that whistle. WHEE-HOO-HOO don't go inside. I know you want nice clothes and you want to eat out of a china bowl, but is it worth it? Just LISTEN listen to that whistle.

[buy, weirdly, here]

(image before and after the UK riots)
(song via Tim Moore, thank you Tim)

Moondog - "On Broadway"

Would you believe it? A lost film by Jules Dassin was unearthed in Hamburg this week. In the storage closet of an old optometrist's workshop, the reels were propping up, of all things, a TV. Inherited from his father, the owner didn't know what they were until a news crew was filming a story at his shop about looters. They read the labels on the canisters and screened the film that night out of curiosity. It's dated 1953, it's called Kaplan is Captain, and it's shot in New York City. Apparently Dassin's interpretation of a Leopold-Loeb-type story, it follows the psyche of Theodore Kaplan, a well-off New York socialite on the cusp of a marital engagement. Kaplan is totally set to finish off his days of galavanting, when he receives an anonymous note: "I'm going to kill you, just because I can." The rest of the film is spent with Kaplan trying to discover his potential murderer to either prove their guilt, or simply get to them first. And this, with its concrete shadows and topcoat mist, is the film's music.

[Buy]

(image by Martin Lewis)