mix xxiv. i know my redeemer lives
(REVISED)
haim – falling I can only tell how old this mix was
supposed to be by the date that I initially downloaded this track. and this
might even be something of a late tell. but the creation of this file is found
on the fourth of june of 2013. that’s how long it’s been that I’ve wanted to
share this with you guys. and now, there they go, haim shows up in the top
lists of a lot of the major music news outlets. the whole record is catchy as
all hell, and gives that 80s vibe about it without ever resorting to any of
those characteristic keyboards or samples of the time. it’s all just a solid,
cyclic, exuberant hook, over and again. this just makes you feel awesome. I
remember getting to work after this coming on and needing to completely replace
the store audio with this song. maybe twice. what is this song even about?
falling or something? into the fire feeling higher than the truth? COOL. LET’S
DANCE.
letlive. – that fear fever I feel like letlive. is that perfect
band to get you OFF. not in the sexual sense, where you’re physically
orgasming. really, no, please. I’m not even going to give you a maybe on that
one. but I feel like they’re all in and it’s very hard not to be all in when
they’re throwing down. I feel like there’s something about what they’re doing
here that gives them an element to ME at least of what the punk sound did to
people before there was anything guttural and raw like that. it’s stripped down
and kinetic but focused enough that it can only fit down one pipe, one channel,
one tunnel directly to your face but there’s so much going on at once that you
are having your eyes dart around in REM-like motions to be able to catch
everything. clockwork orange film strips for your aurals. the production on
this one is a little weird, a little low budget it feels? but get in it,
surround yourself by it. flip tables. throw molotovs.
misery signals – shadows and depth heavy as shit, like handfuls of that
black soil you’d use to plant trees or new landscape projects. so much denser
and thicker and weighty than what you thought you were holding. the heft
doesn’t match the volume. but then there are those wood grain textures in the
background and in the in betweens. that’s what this band has always been for
me. it’s the band that everyone has basketball shorts for and the fitteds and
whatever the mosh kids where nowadays, but there’s something about all of it at
once that doesn’t seem possible to reduce down to a two step or a mosh. when I
saw them as one of the last things I did in NYC before coming down here to the
swerve, even during the breakdowns, kids just stare at them and nod their head
like they’re receiving some outerworldy transmission that is promoting rhythm
through understanding. to wield the vastness that they incorporate their songs
is something that I endlessly respect. they want to punch you down through a
granite floor but into a dust that floats through the atmosphere and lands out
on one of saturn’s moons. I’m down, they sound rad.
citizen – drawn out whereas a band like this is that
band that plays the VFW to all of their friends that they’ve never met and make
eye contact and donate the microphone to the crowd through the choruses and the
hooks so that everyone can be the band can be the voice and can be the message.
there isn’t much to the lyrics in this song personally, but there’s a flashback
here to holding the shoulders of kids I didn’t know who drove the same streets
to get here to celebrate the movement and the songs and the band and the record
and the song. the faces that light up when they finally play the song that
“they better play”. it’s joy. it’s that live performance euphoria that can’t be
replaced. it’s small and singular and important. this song embodies it for me. air
drumming on this one is furious, too. love that bass line too. asics. new
balance. saucony. feel wild.
rookie town – valley lily there are bands like this that are
derivative of the above movement. and they never really sound like their
recordings when they play those little venues. and they’re playing to such
small crowds of people who can only make out what the songs really sound like
because they received the demo or streamed it on sound cloud and know the first
few notes. but they play it too fast and they play it so energetically and
frantically that it barely sounds the same. “I’M STILL AS STRONG AS I EVER WAS”
is such a powerful thing to scream amidst the chaos that the whole song
represents. it’s a beautiful thing to scream into any open space. it’s an
absence of desperation. it’s an affirmation. but there are moments like that
weird bridge in the middle that ONLY belong in the little bars and the wooden
VFWs and never make it in the transition outside of that. but in those tableaus,
they are the prism through which ONLY that light can shine.
bear vs. shark – bloodgiver I’m endlessly happy that I received
an equal visions record sampler back at some warped tour that I’ve since
forgotten. from the days when I was really into coheed and cambria’s first
record and the second one was still kind of relevant to me and before I thought
it was possible the third one could possibly lose me. because ON that sampler
was the song by this band called ‘ma jolie’ that opened my eyes to them forever.
and there’s that midwestern 90s vibe to them a la braid, but that same era
post-hardcore nonchalance that at the drive-in brought that was a blend that
grew deep into my bloodstream. seeing them live was dangerous. I love how
misleading the lack of anything obvious going on in this song is. it shifts and
folds and spreads like a flock of birds or a school of fish. one unit acting in
multiple minds.
moneen – accidents are on purpose to open, yes. this is a cover. but
not so much a cover as it is a reimagining. so if you’ve not heard the
alexisonfire version of this track, it may make it more (or less) enjoyable
based on your knowledge of that track. but this one is way slower, way less
vicious, though all the elements are still there. it’s nothing like george’s
wildcat, throat tearing scream. this is a song completely deconstructed and
reassembled after years of water erosion. it compounds a different level of
emotion into it. moneen has always been a band that seems to simply roll around
on their guitar pedals so there are way more effects going on in the little
spaces between the verses and the periods after the musical sentences. and
there’s the spacial post-rock moment that they place in the middle of the song
that rolls you through a river of illusion and empty galactic space that is
placed where the original song had its musical break.
hrvrd – timid scripts the first notes of this track always
almost lift me inches off of the ground. I have a devotion to this record that
is worn openly like an old hoodie or a pair of jeans that is completely
threadbare. that weird guitar float away sound that happens right after the
first vocals come in, the way the cymbals are recorded, just how much reverb is
surrounding the singer… a lot of it. it’s all shaped like a halo to me. this is
one of those songs that you’ve been asking for when you’ve gotten bored of
every record you’ve bought, every recommendation and every song on the radio.
this is the response to that silent telegraph. the missing brick to the foundation.
the one that fits the new design, the new remodel. I talked about this record
in sort of (read: extremely) over the top terms and this is the song that sort
of encompasses all that the record makes me feel. it’s one of those songs that
makes me feel like there’s no way that this song was written by human beings,
that it was sort of a spiritual transmission that was received by a collective
of people that united them at some temple or sudden canyon. really. I feel this
way.
hrvrd – flaming creatures this is actually the first song from
that record that called to me and made me realize that I was truly loving it,
and that it had a voice that was speaking directly to me. a similar example is
when you are trying to put together what a word or concept is with no prior
recollection to it. like the native americans standing on the shores, unsure
what they were seeing as the global explorers brought their massive ships to
their banks. just not being able to mentally define or even outline these
objects or ideas or in this case sounds. it took me a second to really grasp
it. and it’s not that these guys are doing something that sounds like it’s in a
completely different key or anything, it’s more that I had to really succumb to
the idea that it was taking over as a brand new idea and that there was nothing
really like it that I had liked. it’s in the nuance. the trumpet here, the high
pitched vocal piece. it’s all captivating to me. the “loathing government”
thing… wack. I get that. but the organ, the guitar lacing that goes over it… an
anchor and a propulsion. I love it.
local natives – you & I the slow sweeping of the guitar and
its amber hue is all that it would really take for me to be completely caged up
by this song. but the hook is, on its own and in conjunction with this,
terribly sad and sounds simple and pleading and yet is catchy and something I
want to sing all day. somewhere in the three minute mark, there are notes that
are filling up the whole landscape, like the type of blanket that fill your
vision when you have your eyes closed but stare at a blinding light. little
moments like that stacked with an already great song is what makes this stuff
timeless and endless for me. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it now, some of
these songs I get almost nervous to share with you because the song itself
might only sound like a song to you, and what I want to do is have something
like a séance where I hold your hands around a table and let you feel what I’m
feeling and let these songs speak to you the way they speak to me.
into it. over it. – favor &
fiction one of the
most genuine and hardworking and believable dudes in all of music right now is
evan weiss. hands down, such an approachable dude who just ‘gets it’,
constantly. both in person and on television he has some kind of mission
statement and work ethic that comes across in everything he does. and the
talent he has on the guitar is something that makes him far more than just a
figure head. he can deliver. the main riff on this track is something that can
really speak for his entire discography. lots of angling and bending and
fingerwork going up and down the neck of the guitar. and then another one of
this incredible abilities as a songwriter and music player is the weight and
heaviness of the songs that he’ll lay down without doing much of the palm
muting and typical breakdown stylings that tend to come with songs that can be
described as “heavy”. it’s the timing and the space that he places around the
notes and in between the movements of the song that he’s tying together. take
the part around 1:42 as an example, and on record you can possibly get the view
as it would look on paper, but in his live performance the way that the notes
ring out and the investment and reaction and delivery on his face makes it
fathoms and tons heavier.
poliça – very cruel bass heavy
and rhythm happy and head nodding. the almost sassy and loungy vocals. just on
that level, this song is great. on loop endlessly. lots of really basic stuff
coming together, but layering and building and frothing and getting whipped out
at different intervals. really smart use of echoes. in one of those rare
moments, one string of lyrics really hits directly close to home with me. a way
of life I’ve had to leave behind, one that I was almost ignorantly walking
through days with.
thom yorke
– harrowdown hill one thing that has always stood out to me about
this song since I played it on headphones for the first time is during that bed
of high pitched almost digital keys, it has this weird warbly sound to it in
this very light fashion that makes it sound like it’s coming off of some
heavily used record that has been tried at the owner’s very best to keep it in
good condition, but it is played so frequently, it just can’t help but be
exposed to natural entropy. something about anything this man touches makes
sense. I feel like I can type the lyrics a million times in many different
fonts and beg you to look at it harder but it just won’t speak the same to you
or even myself the same way. I’m staring at it like DON’T YOU GET IT??! like
some kind of son of sam investigator. it’s weird, yeah, it gets weird. to get
even more close to it, start listening to around 2:24, in the left channel,
that weird choppy mumble that he uses as part of the beat to break up the loop
cycle that he’s using. it appears and disappears. it’s little genius that
reveals the iceberg of larger genius. I think of this song as an acknowledgment
of a certain group of people in my life who I’m constantly and forever melded
with, and twisted into a helix that never bends, warps, erases, or is
destroyed. 1.
phosphorescent
– muchacho’s tune oh, and this is just a sad song with a lap steel
and lyrics that I can relate to from a certain point in my life. a longing and
a reaching that held out for hours and endless Indiana miles. lots of staring
out through solid walls as if they were glass windows or open fields. and while
I’m past that sadness, it still was very real to me. and it’s still something
that left a ravine in my existence. it’s healthy now, it’s got foliage and
wildlife in and around it. but it’s still there because of the passing and
crashing of events. and I’ll be able to use THOSE MOMENTS as very real
inspiration both the prehistory, the history and aftermath and recovery from it.
we all have these experiences that become educations for us, that seem so
crucial and defining for us. and I really hope that all of you can openly
choose to not let these framed moments rule your lives. to acknowledge them,
take power over them, accept them and change them and change yourself in ways
that only move you forward.
volcano
choir – comrade more sadness on this track. this song really stood
out to me, along with another track on that record. the other one just wasn’t
as digestible to throw on the mix cd, but had one of the saddest lines I’ve
heard in my entire life, quoted by mr. chinaski himself. there’s something
cruel cruel cruel about singing sad songs with an uplifting sound. it opens up
the creases in your lungs and your heart and your voice box and makes you let
these little flakes of light in. real bite the bullet moments. I think the key
that this song is written in is just inherently positive. there’s one line to
me in here that sort of acknowledges that level of true rejection we’ve ever
felt, though, better than any other. and I need to separate it from the rest of
this description just so it can hopefully get a hold of you the way it did for
me. there are a lot in here that are NOT this next line that really tear at me.
but this next one feels universal. it’s in the song but you can’t make it out
because it’s autotuned and flying away in all directions. but it says:
YOU DON’T EVEN LIE TO ME NO MORE.
blonde
redhead – spain STILL SAD! I want to plaster more lyrics, but
that’s not really my style. this woman’s voice feels like a ghost to me. always
has. this song is written about a personal struggle with trying to let someone
go, despite your excuses and the small wants and desires and perfect scenarios
you set up in your head. although all of your external voices are telling you
to stay away, to stop to leave it to run. you can’t combat or defeat the
missing of someone, the longing. the dialogue you want to have with someone when
you are reunited, the next time that you see them, the way you think it was the
one thing you could say to make them understand. the fact that you feel like
you can’t speak enough to say the one thing so superbly and succinctly (and at
that time, so effortlessly) to make them swoon and stay or come back or fall
into you. the shape of one person’s voice or personality or handwriting to
haunt you for the rest of your goddamn life.
palms –
antarctic handshake this song is simply a meditation broken into two
stanzas. the sound of the universe and its shapes and children. the way the
sounds of the guitars form perfect undulating waves rippling outward. this song
feels like the description of a place described only as beyond. it feels like
floating and fractals. the first portion of the song feels to me almost more of
a portal, a slow pushing tunnel towards what ends up being the open experience
of the second piece. like falling off of an upward escalator into a place with
no gravity, into a sonic representation of an alex grey movement. I’ve had
times with this record where I’ve listened so far into the background of this
track where I can almost detect some kind of Tibetan throat chanting going on
back there, or something even deeper, even bassier. it’s like a strand of light
dissected. twinkles and trenches. the percussion part is so tribal, so simple
but subdued and constrained. omega.
02.07.14
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