AFTERBORN AG'IN

The 'scuses are many why I haven't been poking up like you wanted me to around here for a year or whatever. Solidarity with Rettman, consumption of bitter seeds, too many nights of "sobriety", continuing to have my laptop be "stolen", and just general weariness of the eyes, mind, and fingertippies. But eff it, I Am Hurdlejumper, and I am back because NOW FEELS RIGHT. There's been a new synthesis (so tempted to CAP that as well, but hell if I'm gonna give you the edge of dismissal on schizo grounds) and temporary or not, some sac up in my head emptied all the noxious neurofactor and my boddy (yes, two 'd's, 'cause we're also pals us two) dumped that crap into the River Isis (I's is) and now that I've had a whole weekend of rollaround with no regret, no second-guess'd manouvers, well, felt the time to touch down 'pon yr screens. I AM PUSHINK THRU (yess caps).

"Why the new mood?" you ask, "and where does this leave yr krumbled rantish behaviors of yore?" Well that's a valid question and one I'm sure I'd care to answer if I had butta clue. As it sits, all I know is that something to do with the cooling air temps prior to the full hit of ballfreeze that is as always (always!) en route has linked up the different factions in my brain in a conductive wiring that keeps the roles bawling and the desire for balance and charity most humanizing. Total lack of meanthinks or sadcrappenings, at least for a while, is what I am saying to you now.

"And so I guess whatchoo been listening to, then?" you figure you might as well ask, 'cause otherwise I'll probably start blogging about denimwear again or some such. Well, I have been listening to SO MUCH that it just isn't unfunny. I mean, what, I give you an overview of the past year? Now? Or just a smidgen of the current angles I'm working? I'm not thinking like that, no, so be patient pups. I'm sure it'll weasel it's way in, but for now I'm finding some footing while footing is good. I'ma write about just about nothing, or more or less nothing, 'cause, well, (1) I've been reading Javier Marias so I suppose that's my headspace (not quite nothing, but almost, or at least not much) and (2) THESE WORDS JUST KEEP A-COMIN'. Who am I to shut 'em down?

So now that yr reluctantly inching lips towards spigot, eyes casting a gaze imploring me to go easy on the pump, hoping the swelling juices aren't dosed in weird and sour'd reuptake uninhibitors, or maybe hoping that they're just not *too* sour, crossing yr joss and thinking on the crassest of jass, I'll let you know that I have been hardly working, churning and reinterpreting all that eargristle that's been chumming my way. That's right...

I made a damn song on a tape.

That's right, after a year of being terrified of my own keyboard (okay, not even my own keyboard but the keyboard of another), following the year plus prior to that where I did what but occassionally haul off on a few 'graphs and mebbe once in a moon tune up in mossy basement cache (and not even my own basement, natch, but that of a brother) I stunned myself to the brainquick with the utter realization that alla this record collecting and side hunting and cake gobbling was, yes, in part to broaden what I was aware of in terms of what music, exactly, was. I mean, it took a while, as it would if you were raised on a tennis racket and Cruisin' 1962, but that is some never ending push I can now tell you that, and what it became also is like some kinda me hunting out what toes I had to not step on. See, deep deep down I've always been a total rocker, you know this. It comes thru. But what I was up to was tendin' way too much towards "internet music huckster guy", and a fairly fake-ass one at that. Whuddadda whuddadda whuddadda? Who does THAT by choice?

So my quest for "inspiration" turned into a lookout party for what bases were already covered, a sorta "who don't I want to rip off", which became absurd because I was not producing shit, which yes does make me horrid. A "patron", if you will. Gross. But not so gross, I suppose. Because I finally got good and rum hungover this weekend, or still morning-drunk, perhaps, and sat down all by my lonesome with my cheap ass setup in my nice ass clothes (priorities, rockers!) and I made a little tune. Or, more to the point, I started making a bunch of little tunes, and connecting dots that I didn't even know I had pinpricked in my own melon. Whoda thunk, you go and shiver in a corner with a stylus for a couple years and some creases actually start acknowledging shit. It's good time, after all. Sense has been made of my existence!

So, yes. I am now an artist. It is true. I'm not making any grand claims to life-changing-ness on any of yr body parts (not just yet) but I'm no longer so bummed by all the slabs that I miss out on by necessity. I have my own slabs, thank you! I'm gonna add some more stuff and figure out how I wanna get them offa tape and yes then throw them up here. You don't believe me but you also don't have a finger on the epic juices of imbalance coursing through me right now, so off with ye and come back when I'm quite ready.

Hemming and Hawing

They call the Irish "Donkeys", or at least so I read in Bonfire of the Vanities, but the obstinacy of a Finn is tried and true as they come; they just stay quieter while drinking the bleak winter away. So it is that my heritage often keeps me from doing lo.gical things such as hemming my damn pants, even when I'm not what you'd call a tall motherfucker and every spring of my life has been a month-long shuffle through ankle sucking muck. Perhaps I'm just content to work for pants money, perhaps I just need to reduce the hem width of my purchases and improve on proper "stacking". No matter! I stay the course, pruning my calves and preserving sock bands as stank tattoos, twisting a lip at the capillary action of cotton in grim denial.

But what really gooses my ass about spring is the immediate reminder that whilst I was huddled, reading ever-so-slowly through books that everyone I aspire to emulate has already polished off and/or dismissed, like, twice, people have actually been accomplishing shit in this town. I find it hard enough to contain the rolling boil in my veins during my first stroll from the bus stop sans parka, unsheathed and translucent and engorged, when I have only an amorphous concept of that nagging sense of non-accomplishment from a good season wasted feeding and loathing, let alone when local folk start posting actual hot trax to their goddam myspace pages. Myspace! The gall. And that I had to locate them via 20jazzfunkgreats! So far away. I stumble, refusing to look at the puddles lest they mock me: "You may be from here, but you are not of here." Good luck at SxSW, say hi to the Siltbreeze camp...

Zola Jesus
Dead Luke

In remembrance of weeks past as I curse the slush of today...

Sheltered Life #3: Bitter Pills for Winter Chills Part 1 Part 2

• Make a Change... Kill Yourself - Life Revisited - II
• Magik Markers - Most Beautiful City on Earth - I Trust My Guitar, Etc.
• Sixteen - Chapel of the Chimes - Hex
• Electric Eels - Agitated - Eyeball of Hell
• Bone Awl - Offering to Me - So I Must Take From the Earth
• Satyricon - Mother North - Nemesis Divina
• Grey Daturas - Golden Tusk the Endearing - Dawn of the Catalyst
• Motor Ghost - Golden Promise - A Gold Chain Round Her Breast
• Flaherty Corsano Duo - Whiskey and Soda - Steel Sleet
• Dead C - LA Confidential - split w/ Hi God People
• Birchville Cat Motel - Chi Vampires - Chi Vampires
• Weakling - Cut Their Grain and Blaze Fire Therein - Dead as Dreams
  

Hazmat Jigs

It was a simple truth: Nothing could ever be perfect. "Duh," came the follow up thought, leading to a ricocheting cat-and-mouse game of neural pathway tag between the two brainfarts, the bleak slab reasserting itself again and again in pointless argument with the monosyllabic, echoing thok, "Duh". An unintentional and uninterested mantra. It would have been purifying, had anything been anything but pure to begin with.

At first he had been slightly peeved that the coffee machine seemed to not be pushing quite a full cup out. Over time, a dose of the stuff seemed to stop almost a full centimeter below the upper lip of the cup. True, the coffee was free, and he could just have another cup... but that gap... it seemed wrong. Something needed calibration. What if the level kept dropping every dose? He'd be denied precious sips at least in ratio to trips to the machine.

Of course he didn't complain. That would have been some bullshit beyond even his petty capabilities. He suspected nobody did. It was minor and who could possibly care? These people weren't petty. Or, as he watched himself do, they at least suppressed that pettiness in service of pleasant civility. Everywhere! All of his days it was like this, throughout this town. Affability! Good will, tattered about it's edges! Well, perhaps not on a case by case basis; as he got older the servicework performed by current undergraduates seemed to have a certain -- sneer -- to it, but a general aura of complacent (self? he couldn't tell) satisfaction seemed to pervade the streets he shuffled through. No complaints here! Tip-top! And why should he rock the boat? Indeed.

Yet one day the level of coffee was higher. He could only assume that a routine servicing had resulted in a recalibration. Nobody needed to point it out, someone was checking on it as part of their scheduled maintenance, their supplication to that aura. Self-correction! We're already on top of that! Been penciled in for weeks.

This made him think of when he worked at the coffee stand in the University's Student Union and how much variability there had been in the mass of grounds produced by the buzzing grinders. Sometimes the coffee company would send somebody in, and they would invariably grind batch after batch, tweaking the clockwork to achieve just the right throughput, the air reeking of Breakfast Blend, everyone achieving caffeine buzz and blacklung simultaneously, no burnt tongues, no dead canaries. And yet, the batches... they wavered. They chose their own fate, did it on the fly.

But this, this single serving coffee had just the right level. His nose twitched slightly at the invitation to awaken, his tongue throbbed with expectation of the impending heatwave. He lifted the cup and started strolling...

Coffee curled over the styrofoam lip, the antithesis of the big, icy Superior breakers he used to see violating the cement walls jutting out into the Great Lake. No, this was tiny, black, and scalding. His thumb caught it at the base, on a small scar that used to look like a half moon, the result of a glass broken during one of his rare excursions washing dishes between 2003-2004. A translucent brown drip bulged as his skin blushed.

This set off the game of tag in his mind, the Duh-Sutra. No caffeine yet, even! After he sat down, he thought: Christ, I wonder what the sidewalks will be like after all this snow melts.

Sheltered Life #2: "Repetition" Part 1 Part 2

• Faust - It's a Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl - So Far
• Faust - Munich/Yesterday - 71 Minutes
• Pole - Warum - Steingarten
• Isolee- I Owe You -Western Store
• Pole - Pferd - Steingarten
• This Heat - Repeat -Repeat
• Eyes and Arms of Smoke - In Three Houses - In Three Houses
• Anaksimandros - Lappi Fast Witch - River of Finland
• Anaksimandros - Run With Vishnu - River of Finland
• Kemialliset Ystavat - Musta Metsa - Kellari Juniversumi
• Kemialliset Ystavat - On Patsi Metsa - Kellari Juniversumi
• Phillip Jeck - Spirits Up - Surf
• Es Sateenkaarisuudelma III - Sateenkaarisuudelma
• Galbraith/Neilson/Youngs - Track 2 - Belsayer
• Terry Riley - Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band - A Rainbow in Curved Air

Resurrected by Hi Bandwidth Angelz

Jesus shit, I just noticed how long it has in actuality been since I last sproinged forth my fever dreams onto google's unsuspecting serverbots for the enjoyment of your eyebeams. Well, that weren't my intention. Maybe back around Thankssgiving I tried to squee shut the tap jus' a bit to pressurize and metabolize a more -- significant? personable? purposeful? carefree? gluten free? -- flow, and wound up rather Thanksgiving up [Har!]. Hibernating. I can afford nice beer now, even been taught a bit on how to make an acceptable batch, and our living room's been rearranged to allow sweet couch-fed access to my turntable, so I can slap singles off 'n on without any effort, which is pretty much exactly as things should be. And, you know, shit... "Happy families are all alike." And so I conform, somewhat, and then what do I tell you of interest? Oh, but I'm still legit. Things don't still piss me off sometimes: I screwed some much-craved goulash up last night, it took forever for Netflix to send us the second disc of the Wire's fourth season, and other things sometimes inconvenience me for minutes or even hours at a time. Life is hard all over, I guess.

My laptop is still stolen as fuck, but we just bought a real live supported internet hookup. Yeah, I know... total sellouts. Still, now when I have a sixer and can convince my lady to stop demanding mutually fulfilling conversation and/or lovemaking, I can log on here via her (other) machine and tell you all about my stuff! My opinions! My "thoughts"! Again! It's like old times.

And so to kick of the deluge or trickle of effortless, directionless posts that I will once again spend valuable time and eyecells on over Russian lit, I offer you the first edition of the newly retitled for 2008 broadcasting masterpiece, my gawdamn radio riot:

Sheltered Life #1 part 1 | part 2 - theme: Welcome to the Outhouse

• Velvet Underground - Sheltered Life - Something Different
• Neon Pearl - Forever - Neon Pearl
• Black Swan - Echoes and Rainbows - Black Swan
• Michael Chapman - One Time Thing - Galactic Zoo Tape Club comp
• Crosby and Nash - Where Will I Be - Galactic Zoo Tape Club comp
• Lee Hazlewood - Autumn's Done Come - Galactic Zoo Tape Club comp
• Paul Metzger - Orans - Deliverance
• Isengrind - Perseid Meteor Shower - Golestan
• MV & EE - Snowstorm Blues - Mars Delta
• The Byrds - Blue Canadian Rockies - Sweetheart of the Rodeo
• Elephant Micah - Distant Things - Hindu Windmill
• Ai Aso - Unknown - Umerumonoizen
• Les Rallizes Denudes - Unknown - Deeper than the Night
• Marissa Nadler - Fifty Five Falls - Ballads of Living and Dying
• Ben Nash - Rebecca - cassette
• Alice Coletrane - Journey in Satchidananda - Journey in Satchidananda
• Keiji Haino - Unknown - Watashi-Dake?
• Jacob Olausson - Welcome Traveler - Moonlight Farm
• The Patron Saints - Shine on Heart - 7"
• Liz Green - Bad Medicine - 7"
• Natural Snow Buildings - Wisconsin - Dance of the Moon and the Sun
  

Positive Outlooking for Something to Do

Dunno if it's the chill Nov drizzle or some shit just got slapped out my neurons, but I've had an Ichi the Killer DVD-box-guy (no I ain't seen it) rictus stitchgrin on my internal mug for the past little while now. Yuz, happiness, and here I am to mope about it.

Seriously, it has got me panicking. I mean, how did I get here? How do I stay here? Maybe it's something as easy as having Burial release a new album come every couple months, but I dunno it seems like the ol' dopamine receptors wouldn't be able to handle that onslaught. Y'know how there's a track on th' new Untrue called "Endorphin"? And how it indeed causes a blush of diffusion every time that pitched up voice sings it's little lament and the other one says something about flashing lights? Yeah, that's running me low on whatever compounds it is that my brain needs to make that shizz. Mouse pushing a button here.

And fuggit, I don't really feel like getting into all the other musicks right now. Mostly I want to shout loudly out in appreciation of those dwindling blahg authors who are posting rarely but still slip one out now and again. Woundedgalaxy, Crud Scott, Blastitude, Rettman, Siltblog, the list goes on (I know yull be back, OS Gams). Yeah some of yerz are linked at the side but I don't bother to update them bits and just wanted a live and direct message to let you know that when yuz do get around to slopping something up, it's enjoyed by the soppers. Spreading love like a true ladderclimber, but you know that I ain't got no rungs anyhow. So keep doin' it, as often or as rarely as you feel, but at least make this ridiculous foray into internet ass kissin' worth somethin'.

I dunno, fine. One other thing getting lotsa spin here has been the Bvdub Requited Love twelve on Styrax. It's like if Substance & Vainqueur did a breakup record. It's like if deathprod moved his bod. If Dulli grooved to Carl Craig 'stead of all that motown. It's gluttonous. Real butter.

Now... somebody get me that On the Corner box, tickets to "No Country For Old Men", a cheese basket, and yes I still listen to stuff with guitars, asshole. If it's any good, and that's in an objective way.

The midsized outflux of all manners of weirdos I useta spend my days with and the general pain of not having a centralized home CD stereo line has driven me out to do things in public like I would generally avoid. Though I haven’t yet tried public urination to the same extent that some of the aforementioned weirdos tended to partake. Nah, I’ve been trying to attend “cultural” events and shit. Like concerts or Jim Trainor film series or personal appreciation exercises of the Boss Burger at Nick’s Cafe. Word on the street is that Wolf Eyes goon Nate Young is gonna be showing some films while playing contact mic’d woodblocks or somethin’ the selfsame nite that Andrew W.K. is bringing his guru show to the Union. I’m deeply crossing fingers that this could lead to hijinks and inevitably to moi talkin’ some good natured shit about the lower peninsula to these tape fiend trolls. Worthy events continue to roll out in this town; very disappointing to a dude who just finally managed to replace the halogen bulb on his reading lamp in time for the late year bleakness.

Which reminds: thanx also to Glass Candy for gracing the High Noon in the opening slot for those prison colonist ADD churls. It was a pleasure “observing” you in your mighty attempt to move the twee toddler masses to some form of action other than their moschops lumber.

I suppose you were thinking that maybe this place was dead. I guess now would be as good as any time to letcha know that I plan to maneuvering my updates here to be more aligned with personal diaretics and mentionings of musicks and other interests that are perhaps more on the obscure sides. Might as well admit that I’ve somewhat sold out “the scene” and I have been/will continue to offer up semipro squeegee filth on more “available” sides or matters as a contribuwhore at Shiv/Shill/Shine. E.g. a post on New Age tapes and how they’ve helped me achieve enfrightenment would be placed here, whereas a post on something like my everexpanding appreciation of Mark Hollis would likely work it’s way out over there, much to Hasting’s chagrin I am sure. Is it already outta print? I’ll rub it in yr face here. Available on Amazon? There. I’ll probably talk about Burial’s Untrue at both places, ‘cause it is the Alpha and the Omega of 2007 and beyond.

And fine, if you want some kinda insight into my current general mindset via statistical analysis, here’s a sampling of my current most played albums on my work computer, unordered just to piss you off:

Daniele Baldelli – Cosmic: The Original
Pauline Oliveros – Accordion and Voice
Isengrind – Golestan
MV & EE – Mars Delta
Grey Daturas/Monarch – Dawn of the Catalyst
Twinsistermoon – Levels and CrossingsAndrew Chalk – Blue Eyes of the March (still haven’t heard pt 2, dammit)

Perchta Plate

I've brought up elusive and ethereal androgydroners Natural Snow Buildings here before, and once again I'll jump into the fray, unafraid to come off like that kinda dude pushing stuff that you just aren't gonna get hardcopy of at this junkture.

Over the past year, the pairing responsible for the immersive double cdr "The Dance of the Moon and the Stars" have now sallied forth to blip radars with a few solo specks, furthing their distinctive aesthetic in pressings of fewer than 40 apiece.

I'm really not quite sure what to tell you at this point. I feel prick enough pushing these micro releases on ya without devolving into too much of the prose that this kinda stuff inspires. Shit, I've already used "ethereal". What else? "Haunted"? "Gossamer"? "Devotional shamanic seance"?

It's all true, folks, and it's no throwaway derivative tripe, neither. Each of these discs (which, for posterity's sake, I suppose I should explicitly identify as Twinsistermoon's "When Stars Glide Through Solid" and "Levels and Crossings" and Isengrind's "Golestan") is a testament to careful craftsmanship and production, both the sonic contents and physical package. While yr not likely to be holding the swank foldout trays and art paper liners any time soon, unless you already are, I do recommend googling around as it seems that some kind souls have made a good deal of this stuff available across the wires.

As a brief rundown of my personal thoughts on each release, Twinsistermoon's first, "When Stars...", has the deepest middle-of-the-night rooftop-twirling moondance vibe, everything coming off like there's no end in sight for the inky blackness (not that you'd want there to be). Shingles are flying off ledges, but nothing's hitting the ground. In contrast, "Levels" maintains a similar vibe while occassionaly suggesting a few approaching rays of dawn, or an overtired dew-dropped hike along a dirt road, pantscuffs soaked by the weeping grasses.

"Golestan" is a bit more abstracted, pulling back on some of Twinsistermoon's lushness for a slightly more arid, though none less beautiful, soundscape. Without Mehdi's sickly-sweet vocals, things focus a lot more on ear-to-the-dirt drone maneuvers, with a couple dirge-marches finding an unlikely shared space between gentleness and menace, evoking to this brainpan a parade of animal skeletons moving somehow playfully towards a mirage of springwater.

Well, yeah. Figured I'd go and get all convoluted and I did. That, I s'pose, is all I can hope for. This stuff is definitely worth looking out for for the amazing sonix, and with any luck some bastard will start a campaign up for wider releases so package fondlers can have their proper fill as well. A bone? Thrown:

Twinsistermoon - The Solar Cross - Levels and Crossings (Sendspace link)

Isengrind - With it's mouth to the south and it's tail to the north - Golestan (Sendspace link)