Archives : all posts by Dan

Chris Locke - "Track Pants"

Chris Locke's new comedy record The World is Embarrassing is truly masterful. It achieves that level of naturalism and easy charm that only someone who has worked really damn hard at their craft can achieve. Take "Track Pants" as an example, I don't want to dissect it, but beneath the chuckling freshness you can feel a wordperfect script, one that intentionally goes unnoticed, it's really magic. [#1 comedy album on iTunes Canada]

Edmund and May walked unhand-in-handed up a gold sidewalk, gold from the sun. Cars like the mad wall of wind, the wall of wind and sound and panic you learn to ignore. The hills in the distance like big mansion-flecked piles of money. And with the sidewalk, pure gold, and the noise of the cars, the wall of wind, and the step distance between them, and the slump-shirted bus stop sitter with the bags, Edmund felt like the invisible tie between them was worn like an old elastic on a pair of boxer-briefs. It never quite retracts all the way.

Edmund could be in the most beautiful damn place in the world and he would still look at his shoes when he walked. "How is the world made?" he thought to himself, and answered himself, "In layers. Like a cake."

Ice Cream - "Science"

There is something hiding in this book. In the space between the letters lies a language. When a phrase forms an image it is formed between the letters. When it's written "windows open", windows open and in crawl ghosts. When it says "she sighed" it's heard between the letters, through her teeth like smoke. So to read "I am science," it's understandably dangerous, things may feel haunted then forever after that.

[I'm abroad and can't post mp3s, apologies. -Dan]

There is a place where the clouds move slow enough for life forms to grow, even flourish, on their undulating surface. The most intelligent of these creatures are The Skay, with a weight and density far below that of the crawling Mud Gas. Their appearance is nebulous, almost transient. Their movements scant, seepy. But their language is vast. They live mostly between the 3rd and 4th nivo of Mud Gas, and the silence in that echelon is monumental, it's air-sealed from above and below. It is the first thing any traveller notices, my goodness it's quiet, even before the smell, mmm, and there's a...hm. The Skay are a full-resonance being, they are sound receivers, and can hear what amounts to the thoughts of any other Skay. Because it is so quiet, even the electricity required for a complete thought can be heard. And the Skay have an adage, one of the only translatable phrases they have: "Build your house and feed the hills." Their ground is clouds. It's constantly shifting, it throbs spongily, reacting to the pressure of the air below, so one day you could be living atop a hill with the a beautiful view of the entire Skay city at night, the porous twinkling Travel Caverns and the hive-like Quorum Centers, the next day you could be sandwiched between a Swirling Vector and a HotWall. Or your house could be swallowed altogether, which happens about twice a year to nearly every Skay. So it means of course you need to work, and of course that work will be destroyed. [PWYC]

A pocket relationship, one of those accidental ones. Love I didn't even know it was happening and there was no one at the other end. [bandcamp]

Link Wray - "Facing All The Same Tomorrows"

Edmund watched his father Peter die in the bright white sunshine on the bright white sheets. So many sheets, ready to change the linens at a moment's notice. The word "Peter" seemed to have scare quotes around it, though Edmund never expressed them outside his own head. It used to be "Dad", but now it was "Peter". He never indicated to his wife May with little finger gestures or even a slight pause and bracketing with his voice (Why do you say it like that?) that he wasn't just saying Peter. But it was distinctly "Peter". From the moment when, after being sick for two months, Edmund saw his body looking like it had been vacuum-packed, the air sucked out through his eyes or his heart or his groin, the energy gone, the sails of his ship limp and windless, no strength to sip through a straw or even close his eyes, he was Peter.

Months previous:
"You see, Ed, the world is made for the healthy. How did you get in here?"
"I walked in."
"Yes, you opened the door and you walked in, right? That's a door to you, but to me, I don't have the strength to turn the handle, that might as well be a wall to me."
Edmund looked at the wall.
"And you get thirsty. You want a drink. Your thoughts wind you out of bed, maybe into some pants, you walk to the hall and think I'd better get my slippers so you go back and get them, then into the bathroom and bend down and drink straight from the faucet, no need for a cup."
Edmund couldn't help but wonder if he had an email waiting for him. "Yes."
"That's a marathon to me. That's a maze so complicated it would take me an hour to solve it, and I'd be exhausted. I'm a different thing now, I can't live here without help."
Peter fell asleep before the episode of Columbo had even really gotten started.

"Peter" looked into the air at what may have been a speck of dust in the light or Edmund's eyes, it was impossible to tell. And totally still, without a sign of pain or discomfort, he vomited. Brown, runny liquid out his nose and mouth, down his face to the bright white sheets, on his vacuum-packed skin. After that was cleaned up, Edmund called May, "I think it's time," and while she was on her way from BC he died.

May, Edmund's 4th wife, had no idea it was happening during her flight. Dutifully, she had put her phone on airplane mode. She looked out the window and thought: if you take the plane away, this must look very odd.

[This is from House of Broken Hearts Pt. 1, an out-of-print release by the endless stream of treasures that is Mississippi Records. Buy others here.]

Chelsea Light Moving - "Lip"

JAN 8 Was wearing a brown jacket. Was told that was the perfect "dumb-looking" costume for a character. Jan 16 A cake with my face on it. Jan 20 Spiders. Feb 1 A parking lot with crevices of fire, riding BMXs through them. An ex-girlfriend and a postponed Kanye show. Feb 4 I lost one of my teeth, a visceral hollow scratching, but painless. Feb 10 Submitting a form. Stressed out about it. Feb 12 Ran into Henry Joost in NYC. He was, as always, extremely handsome. Feb 21 Y came to see me and we had tea and smiled as if nothing anymore needed to cause pain. Feb 27 So many maggots. Like the city was built on garbage. I seemed to know I was dreaming because I consciously thought, "I need to be more careful about garbage in my real life." Mar 3 Folding Irish Dancing dresses. Preparing them for dancers in a competition. My grandmother's old house in the country. Mar 4 Alone in a cottage, I boiled water and watched a man in leather with a white painted face climb haphazardly through the kitchen window. I wondered if he had a gun. Mar 9 Off-camera sex with an acquaintance, followed by an awkward hour of walking around an airport with them, looking for our gate. Mar 25 Three former friends start a filmmaking collective: 'Invisiage'. Apr 3 "Can you come with me, please." I was brought to a large shower room, where a woman was going to teach me how to bathe. I found this at first patronizing. And then sexy. Apr 15 Literally the most boring one to date. So boring, in fact, that between waking up and trying to write it down, I've forgotten it. It was that uninteresting. Apr 20 A world where being born premature greatly affected your life. Lots of imagery of 'preemies' doing stand-up. Apr 29 On a mission to protect Disney princesses. A 'Mush Mouse' was a ball of fur and blood with no bones that would sort of slime itself over you. Traversing a swamp with my mother to reach a suburban house, the owner of which I read off a business card: 'Lindy'.

Vic Mensa - "Welcome to INNANET"
Vic Mensa - "Tweakin (Ft. Chance the Rapper)"

It's too cold to go out, and I'm stuck in this heat cloud, tied to the radiator. I'm secret agent to the shower. I'm stealth cat food. I'm lookin at my future, I'm watchin the waveform. And there's drops and breaks on the way. It gets loud. And it could be like waaaahhh----ooomp, or it could be na-na-na-na-NA-na, but who knows. And no one stops the needle. I'm looking out all three windows and it's bricks, cars, and hooded strangers. I can see my breath and my cell phone is dead and I can see everything clearer now; nothing goes beyond the hand in front of my face. And the less you can focus on the world, the more you can focus on cleaning in the dark. Quiet. Be soooo quiet. Or the weather will hear you. And kill you.

[the full INNANETAPE]

Michael Nhat - "Heads Filled Up With Toenails"

Drugs are great because when you get off them you wonder how you ever lived when you were on them. And when you get back on them you wonder how you ever lived without them.

I could see a spot out on the lake, in the middle of the lake, a dark spot. It was morning, the snow refreshed but that spot was not there yesterday. I finished my tea and swallowed the leaves, the bitter pattern left on my throat told my obvious future: cold. I geared up and trudged down to the lake, one woodpecker, one chipmunk, wood smoke. The sky seemed to grind its teeth. When I reached the shore, there was that spot. Seemed to be in the middle of the lake. The edges seemed solid, no prints, I walked out. The point was there, floating in my vision like a hair in the lens, like it wasn't part of the actual picture. My thirties were, after all, folded neatly in my back pocket, ready to show like wallet-size photos if anyone asked. I got closer to the spot, and out came the features: arms, buttons, slumped posture. I thought it could be a dressed snowman, but also knew at once that it couldn't be. A look at the slanted grey features told me it was real. It was half a person, sticking out of the lake. Perhaps the other half was stuck in the lake, perhaps the other half was the lake. An enormous ice tutu, or ice legs fifteen city blocks each.

I stood there and thought about a child's riddle. A detective finds a body in the desert, no footprints to or from, not dehydrated, how did he die and what happened in the scene? Why was there a detective in the desert? I thought, and watched my breath like smoke.

[the obtuse and sincere Michael Nhat continues his fervent output, PWYC]