metric reflection

I think this album hit me somewhere around the second song, Francoise. In an eerie canvas, colored only by the scraping bow of a violin and some soft accordion, the album blossomed in my mind fully formed, a picture already painted. It’s a tundra tale of a lonely, desperate man trying to scratch out a living for his family in the frozen wasteland of an early Quebec. The plains of Eastern Canada carried few opportunities; it’s easy for any man to succumb to the destitution, falling victim to the cold wind of frontier life.

And so it goes in Midwest Dilemma’s Timelines and Tragedies. The album tells singer-songwriter Justin Lamoureux’s family history, starting with their initial journey from France to Montreal, the ship’s discomforting creaking lacing the song, fur trading their way into the U.S., down through the Midwest, where they’ve shared in the American story. In The Great Depression, the driving anxiety of the time motivates the song; pushes the character, Victoria, into leaving for greener pastures, even as the expected disastrous crescendo falls around her ears. But then the family sends its sons into war, where they march to a victory anthem.

And on through the Industrial Age the family wound its path around America’s, working on the railroad, finding love and losing it. Family members succumb to illness, but family is what keeps you going, and, like Faulkner’s Emily, their memory remains, lingering like the sound of angels. Even so, just a few generations later, a main character loses himself to alcohol, and another goes off to Viet Nam with fingers crossed.

The music reflects such tumult. “Good Samaritan,” the song about Viet Nam, is really three songs in one - a moody description of a broken man, decades after the war; a march through the jungle; and the wild behavior of the recently returned vet losing control. Sioux City is about giving up to alcohol; slide guitar and clarinet whistling through the vast open skies - nothing above, nothing ahead, until the bottle is as empty as the future.

This is an album for our times. Borne of despair, there are few lucky breaks, just the desire to push ahead, through economic woe, family tragedy, and hopelessness. But even when Lamoureux claims that the “damage is done” on the album’s closer, it’s obvious he hasn’t given up - how can one give up when there’s nowhere lower to go? It’s an insight only offered through historical analysis, through learning from the lessons of our predecessors, and carrying that knowledge into the future.

I figure tonight, of all nights, as the Presidential candidates conclude their 3rd snoozeslugfest, is the best time to introduce this catchy little song from The Rosebuds:

The Rosebuds - Bow to the Middle: The Religion of Politics

This is a dance song, but not in the traditional sense: it’s not meant to get the listener on their feet (though it’s certainly catchy) but to describe the Chaplin shuffle politicians perform every couple years - the one the candidates are both dancing right now.  I’m not going to get too far into the actual politics of our two candidates, or the substance of their arguments (though my roommate has a great dissection of one question in the last debate that I’ve been meaning to commend him for), but rather in the meta-aspect of it.  The point is summed in the chorus:

Hey yeah, walk to the middle and bow to the middle
Hey yeah, walk to the left and bow to the middle
Hey yeah, walk to the right and bow to the middle
Hey yeah, walk all around and bow to the middle

It’s what candidates in our system are required to do:bow to the incessant demands of the inattentive swing voter, the person who still thinks Obama doesn’t give any policy details and McCain just wants to be like any other Republican, but doesn’t really get why.  It’s the continual groveling before the altar of the low information constituency that really undermines everyone interested in furthering the country’s policies - including that very same swing voter.  See, when you spend all your time tempering your statements with an eye toward the middle, with covering your beliefs up just enough that those in the middle will miss your appeals to your base, they end up seeing you as insincere - and that’s when they start doubting.  You, as a politician, carry on your shoulders the mantle of the inadequacies of the system and all the old politicans you evoke in people, and it’s your job to move the discussion past it to the issues you want to discuss.

Incidentally, it’s the Democrats who have traditionally had the biggest problem with this.  Even Bill Clinton, the master of connecting to the white working class, suffered from this.  Republicans, like Bush, were able to wink in both directions by using coded language (see: the Dred Scott decision as a dog whistle to pro-lifers or Reagan, Philadelphia, MS and race).  In this race, it seems that this dynamic has shifted a bit, with McCain being seen more and more as the insincere one, particularly in regards to the economy.

I spend a lot of my off time thinking about political movements - how they are formed, grow, communicate, and, eventually stagnate.  Bowing to the middle on the election trail has been the premier requirement in American politics for at least a generation (right up there with kissing babies), and in that generation, one party has shown itself better practiced at this performance.  I’m curious how much longer this will last, and the form this dance will take in years to come.

***

I haven’t written much lately; in part, my free time has been focused on the election and less on music (though I have picked up a lot of great stuff lately), but also because of the demands of end of the year performance metrics coupled with my knack for finding more side projects for myself.  No clue when this will end, but the end of the year looks like a nice cutoff point.

Oh, and the Rosebuds are really great.  Everyone should check them out.

Windmill, the nom de guerre of Matthew Thomas Dillon, is a rhythmic journey into the coldness of modernity. It’s cold marble and plastic; a life lived divorced from emotion. Events of the world, affecting millions, are just pictures on a tv screen, tinted unrecognizable with the glare of a morning winter sun.

One of the big name automakers recently released a commercial featuring a woman staring transfixed through a moonroof as her friends, party bound on a Saturday night, drove through an unnamed city. So mesmerized by the constellations of lights in the office buildings above, she completely missed the fact that her friends had all disembarked. This is what this song conveys: the calmness of drifting through a crowd, detached and aloof, yet in touch with the atoms colliding around you, people, sounds, lights, steel and plastic.

In my ever-increasing search to ensure that I’m doing this legally, I’m trying out Seeqpod. I’m not sure I like how it displays (which is what has kept me from using it before), so anyone reading, let me know what you think.

(Image from Flickr user thismeik)

It’s a rollicking game of poker, here in the Old West.  None of us really trust each other, but we’re here for the money, the thrill, the rush of red splayed across our hands when we get the flush.  Time isn’t linear here.  It strolls by at low tide and then comes crushing back in hours later, making you realize just how devastated you and your wallet have become.  And that’s when things get a bit hazy, as, your head spinning, you pull your gun, screaming about dirty cheats.  You’re floating above watching the mess unfold, intent on where those bullets are going to go, screaming red balls of steel sinking into flesh, splaying crimson over the cards, until your inner addict, parasite as it may be, looks out for its survival and talks you back down.

In Cadeo - Vultures

***

In Cadeo’s website is sparse, but it does offer a free EP (from which this song came) and some hints at November’s full-length.  Check it out and enjoy.

Picture taken at Great Falls, VA

Whew, so 2 weeks ago, I said to myself, “dammit, must update blog!” and Self snickered but said sure. Who knew Self was going to rely on external exigencies to get its nefarious non-updating way?

Yes, the past week has been too busy for me to do any writing, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been listening.

There are some weeks where 1 or 2 interesting albums drop, and I pick up an album or two from a year ago from some band I’ve just stumbled across. But not last week! Last week alone the following great albums came out:

1. Bound Stems - The Family Afloat
2. The Broken West - Now Or Heaven
3. Damien Jurado - Caught in the Trees
4. Fujiya and Miyagi - Lightbulbs
5. The Lovely Sparrows - Bury the Cynics
6. Marching Band - Spark Large
7. The New Year - s/t
8. Okkervil River - the Stand-Ins
9. Parenthetical Girls - Entanglements
10. Tricky - Knowle West Boy

I also picked up:

1. Birdmonster - From the Mountain to the Sea
2. The Clientele - That Night, a Forest Grew
3. Jessica Fletchers - Less Sophistication (yay!)
4. The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age of the Understatement (finally on eMusic - glad I waited)
5. Marissa Nadler - The Saga of Mayflower
6. The Uglysuit - s/t
7. Viva Voice - Get Yr Blood Sucked Out
8. The Silents - Sleepwalker

I’m weary just from typing all of them up. So far, all of the new albums are standouts; not a bad album in there. I’ve never encountered Damien Jurado before, but I find his Elliott Smith suddenly got happy approach to music relaxing. The new Tricky, though at times a bit too reggae for me, reminds me how much I’ve always liked his work - and resurrects the giddy laughter that always bubbles up whenever I hear his music thanks to his minor role in Fifth Element. Some of the new stuff, like Marching Band or The Lovely Sparrows, is just beautiful orchestral indie pop. How can you go wrong with that? Finally, the new Okkervil River and the new Broken West kick ass. Haven’t gotten to The New Year’s latest yet.

So I threw together a quick mix; Part 2 will be up (probably) tomorrow and then it’s off to the races for another week’s new releases!

1. The Lovely Sparrows - Year of the Dog
2. Parenthetical Girls - Young Eucharists
3. Damien Jurado - Coats of Ice
4. Bound Stems - Happens to Us All Otherwise
5. Fujiya and Miyagi - Knickerbocker
6. The Broken West - Auctioneer
7. Okkervil River - Lost Coastlines
8. The Uglysuit - Chicago

Today I’ve been stuck listening to Deastro for some reason.  Ages ago, I had an extra download on eMusic - one of those perilous situations where I didn’t want to waste the 25 cents, or whatever it’s actually worth, soI spent an hour looking for that one perfect track that will complement the 99 others I just spent half a day downloading (of course, I almost always blow through my allowable downloads the first week I realize they’ve reset) - and ended up randomly grabbing Deastro’s The Goodman of the House.  Goodman is a sprawling track that starts off brooding before exploding into a fantasy synth and guitar driven rock anthem.

Like M83 before them, Deastro sounds like a throwback to the best parts of late 80s synth-pop, but this nostalgia is edgier; informed by the layered simple melody approach to music indie rock was championing a few years ago (see: Bright Eyes’ Lover I don’t Have to Love).  It’s fun and invigorating, especially for an office dweller.

Some Deastro samples can be found at My Old Kentucky Blog.  Keeper’s, the newest album, is available only through eMusic.

High school Honors English often seemed at times like an endless stream of pointless, difficult, and hated books (ugh, Wuthering Heights) interspersed with a few that glowed with genius, originality and talent.  Those are the ones that stick with you: Gatsby’s empty opulence informs your perception of the rich you encounter everyday; the swinging lightbulb in Wright’s Native Son reminds you of the beacon of hope you have to find in the darkest moments.

But no text stimulated me quite as much as Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle.  Sinclair’s description of the everyday horrors of the meat processing plant, and the efforts to unionize them, sparked the first inklings of political awareness - the first concrete idea that people can be exploited and abused.  I can’t even recall much of the second half of the book except that the main character was adrift, trying to deal with the station of his life.

I bring this up because today is Labor Day, and like Veteran’s Day or Memorial Day, we as a society have forgotten the reason we celebrate it.  Instead of merely a day of barbeques, beaches, and baseball, and lamentations about the crisis of having to return to work the following day, those are supposed to be a means of actively celebrating the value of the American workforce, and the sacrifices that generations before us made in order to protect an honest day’s work.  It’s a time to recognize the power of people-powered movements - to exploit an already overused phrase - to solicit change.

The strikes and beatings of the late 19th and early 20th century taught people that they didn’t have to be exploited; that, working together they could change the system.  This, of course, culminated in events like the protests at the 1968 Democratic Convention, where protestors and police went to war with each other.  Now, though, mass grassroots political events seem to barely elicit notice; only in something like a speech given to 75,000 people can we see glimmers of something similar - though of course it’s directed from the top-down.  And just a week later, as police raid the homes of protesters and arrest journalists on the streets of St. Paul surrounding the Republican convention, scant attention is paid in the media as a whole - just as their counterparts were ignored last week in Denver (note: I’m not endorsing any of them or their actions, just noting the lack of oxygen in stories about them).

So protests do almost nothing anymore, but they once did; and people bled and died to force better working conditions, shorter work weeks, and health and safety protections.  That we live in a country where that could ever happen is reason enough to celebrate.

The Jungle opens with a traditional wedding - a night of dancing, of a community celebrating.  The air carries hope and optimism, the sound of chattering fiddles and the warm aroma of ovens of food.  It’s a truly ordinary event, replicated countless times any given weekend, but for the people involved, it’s momentous, connecting their future with the storied past of their families.

DeVotchKa evokes much of this spirit, bridging the past and the future with the exuberance of a classic wedding band.  Their live shows, according to their bio, can feature sousaphone, accordion, piano, violin, bouzouki, trumpets, and theremin in addition to the standard rock instruments.  The drummer was raised by Lithuanian polka musicians; the violinist is classically trained.  Their most recent album, A Mad and Faithful Telling, which was released earlier this year, dips its toe into several classical styles.

The song below, Transliterator, is available for free on rcrdlbl.com.

Woo, it’s been a while.   The past few weeks have been fairly stressful and busy for a variety of reasons.  Most notably, though, the past week has found me fighting my dsl at every turn.  Pages would load halfway and stop, or they wouldn’t load at all (”What do you mean you can’t find the server google.com?!?!?!).  I finally beat it last night by switching from Verizon’s DNS servers to OpenDNS.  That minor change was like switching from a 14.4 modem to regular DSL.  It was such a relief that I watched a series of Kermit and Elliott Smith videos on Youtube before passing out, neglecting the various other tasks I’d been planning the past week.

After the tumult of that kind of night, there’s nothing more refreshing than some of the chamber pop of Bill Ricchini.  I remember purchasing this cd out of a used bin on a lark, because a little bell went off in my head that I’d read about it somewhere.  Usually, I can’t tell the difference between the warning bell and the excitement one, but this time I lucked out.  Ricchini’s songs are finely polished pop gems in the vein of Dear Catastrophe Waitress era Belle & Sebastian.  It’s a great, uplifting start to a day of traffic, powerpoint, and excel.  Yay!
Bill Ricchini - When the Morning Comes

(Image used under Creative Commons from Flickr user ydnar)

More edible than their namesake, at least.  Denver-based Hearts of Palm was apparently once known as Nathan and Stephen, but then they added a few members… and then a few more… and now there’s something like 10 or 12 people in the band. Seriously, the members keep going on and on into the background, 3 or 4 rows of musicians looking giddy, or perplexed, or sleepy.

Luckily, they unify the mood for their music, producing a bouncy, energy-filled blast that doesn’t relent throughout their 4-song EP (available for free on their website). It’s an interesting song; although a bit repetitive (in a sing-along way), it jumps around lamenting empty houses and people who never had a chance to make it. Alas, even the most exciting of our songs can’t escape the doldrums of our times.

Hearts of Palm - No Water

Two new Verve songs are available for download or stream: Love is Noise and Mover. Both are excellent songs, and listening to them reminds one of just how much bands like Coldplay owe their sound to them.

How many times have they broken up now? Hopefully this go-around, almost a decade after the last, will see less drug use and more permanence.

Also, a new Sloan album, Parallel Play, came out yesterday. The first single, Believe in Me, is available at their Myspace page.