A personal weblog written by Robert. Mere Christian, aspiring minimalist, inveterate notetaker, budget audiophile and paper airplane mechanic.
Posts tagged with noise
Terry Godier might be a certain kind of genius, as evidenced by his masterfully crafted RSS reader, Current, and the ideas behind it. So when I saw he had created a short documentary about music formats, one of my favorite subjects, I had high expectations.
Godier hits upon a lot of the problems intrinsic to streaming media in the video. When he discusses the limitations of physical media, he’s able to make them sound like desirable features.
Some good news came this week in the form of more Velocity Girl remastering. This time it’s a compilation of non-album tracks from various places being released by Slumberland Records. The collection is called 1989–1992 and the contents are precisely what it says on the tin.
I’ve been on a post-punk x new wave kind of kick the last several days, after I learned Black Marble (who I blogged about last year) are going to be playing nearby in September. The algorithm overlords recommended Castlebeat to me after the end of a listening sesh of “Bigger Than Life.” I hadn’t listened to Castlebeat in a few years, but remembered them from this fan video using footage from the best movie ever to take place in a big box store: Career Opportunities.
I recently hit my 20th anniversary (!!!) at the company where I work. Instead of a gold watch, I got what amounts to about $400 in a foreign currency they call “Spotlight points.” Thought I didn’t pull the trigger right away, my immediate thought was to blow the lot on a pair of Sennheiser HD 650 headphones. I’ve been researching these cans for some time now, but even at a consistent 38% off, a price point of nearly 400 bones meant I wouldn’t just impulse buy these things.
A few weeks ago, I saw Mark Robinson from Unrest/Air Miami/Flin Flon open for the Wedding Present at the Motorco Music Hall in Durham. Although the bill clearly stated that Robinson would be playing Unrest songs, imagining him doing those songs without the two other band members, Phil Krauth and Bridget Cross was challenging. Whatever images I could conjure didn’t match the actual show.
Everyone has been posting about the Aadam Jacobs collection. Since I love indie music from the 90’s, I’m certainly going to spend some time with the massive 10,000 live recordings collection. I went to the page on the Internet Archive and one of the first recordings I saw was Rachel’s at Lounge Ax. I bought The Lounge Ax Defense and Relocation compilation created to save the venerable Chicago club when it released. I’ve spun that disc hundreds of times. The song Rachel’s contributed to the comp, “Those Pearls,” is probably my favorite by the band.
Immediate download. Let’s get this exploration started.
Charlotte Cornfield is the latest musician to put out something via Durham, NC’s Merge Records. Hurts Like Hell is also the first long player by the Canadian singer/songwriter since becoming a mother. The title track, “Hurts Like Hell,” wallows in a remembered sentimentality with the advantage of looking at difficulty in the rearview mirror. We all know what it’s like to try to gain perspective when in the midst of a tough situation.
The video immediately endeared itself to me because its protagonist is wearing a sweater just like one I purchased a couple of weeks ago. The guy looks like he’s kin to Ben Gibbard and plays a sympathetic character who appears to ingest some psychoactive substance along with a confection delivered from an anonymous sender. His enthusiasm for playing the video’s song at high volumes (with bass boost!) outside is a nuisance to his neighbors.
Charlotte Cornfield - Hurts Like Hell (YouTube)
My wife and I have long been devoted to music from the band Stars. It’s hard to pick a favorite album, but I especially treasure a few of the songs on No One Is Lost. The 2014 album was recorded in a studio the band built above a gay discotheque and seems to have absorbed some of the dance vibes, if not the sexuality, through the floorboards. Stars doesn't spring the title track on their listeners until the very end of the album, but it’s a massive banger to bring things to a close.
It’s hard to find danceable songs with such a sober sense of the finite nature of our mortal existence. As singer Torquil Campbell repeats “Put your hands up ‘cause everybody dies,” one gets the sense that this is an expression of momento mori and the modern equivalent of the ancient Roman practice of having someone follow your victory chariot exhorting you to “remember your death.” If this sounds too morbid, Campbell and co-vocalist Amy Milan also repeat, “Until then, that will listen, no one is lost.”
If I didn’t know any better, I’d almost think this was akin to the Christian belief that until the end, one always has a chance to repent.
