12/10/14

An impending visit home, and the impending close of a tremendous, tumultuous year has me nostalgic for things I don't miss. It has me wondering what I've got to hold onto. It has me questioning if this newfound lightness is adjustment or apathy, maybe it is a little bit of both. Either way, it feels effortless but perfectly unnatural, like tripping off a cliff and falling so far and so fast you may as well be flying. Even though you were born without wings.

I've found the more ordinary and commonplace a feeling becomes - be it sadness or euphoria - the more you start to wonder what you're missing out on with the other extreme. Was the emptiness that bad after all? Wasn't it, in a way, kind of inspiring? Or, is crippling loneliness just a convenient cover for feeling sorry for yourself? And all along you were just missing out on where you were supposed to be?

Is there a better get-lost-in-the-pensive album this year than Aaron West? I answer with a resounding no. In a year where I've spent significant time working hard and trying to focus - always, always trying to focus - in the face of balancing combative emotions, I've found myself consistently coming back to this record for something stirring. Its emotional triggers are strong and significant and its composition is an unoffensive brand indie rock that is equal parts gruff and graceful.I like "Runnin' Scared," it makes me want to run, not scared, and feel a little fresh and free and fiery in the face of all this frozen snow and icy feeling.  I like the subtle references to desperation mixed with the outspoken appeals to it, like the line about the broken taillight. The story of Aaron West is a heartbreaker, to be sure, but I see something inspiring in all this empty, something.What is it to feel anything at all, if not that?

"I'm stuck on a memory,
Of you dancing in a backyard in North Jersey.
You're holding sparklers,
And silhouetted by the porch lights on a summer evening.
So, while I'm pulling my gloves off with my teeth,
It occurred to me you used to be happy.


I curse the dashboard heat,
It's fucking freezing.
Asleep in the backseat,
Oh god, I'm shaking. I'm empty.
I feel so damn empty.


I keep thinking
That I'll feel better when it's warmer across state lines.
Now I'm scraping ice off of the windshield with a piece of broken taillight.
Oh, I wouldn't quite call it homesick
but I keep seeing your face in the northbound traffic.


I curse the dashboard heat,
It's fucking freezing.
Asleep in the backseat, 
Oh god, I'm shaking. I'm empty.
I feel so damn empty.


I'm gonna go to Georgia.
I'm gonna smile in the sun.
I'm gonna pick you some wild day-lilies,
And I'm gonna hold on to them.
I'm gonna keep them in my pocket
Til you let me back home.
I'm gonna go to Georgia,
And I'm coming back whole.

I curse the dashboard heat,
It's fucking freezing.
Asleep in the backseat,
Oh god, I'm shaking. I'm empty.
I feel so damn empty."
~Runnin' Scared
Aaron West and the Roarin' Twenties, We Don't Have Each Other

12/9/14

"Guilty pleasures at best
gouge the floors of our chests
this, the only vestige left
Next time will be better, I guess

When I'd be alone
Happy alone
I'd be alone
Happy alone
Call what you want
and I'll be alone.

To presuppose this precipice
could be climbed by anyone of us,
that was my misjudgment.
I guess I best just shut up and and face that,

I'm not one to
Be three-fourths sore,
When I crave a split lip,
I get it quick.

And I'd be alone,
Happy alone.
I'd be alone
Happy alone
Call what you want
and I'll be alone."
~Happy Alone
Saintseneca, Dark Arc

Sometimes when I think about songwriting I have this really elaborate structure in mind, that there must be many lines and a big, gripping story, but maybe all you need, to succeed in being listenable, is a killer first line, hand-clap hook and three minutes and 20 seconds. I'm hooked on this track today, and its sort of surf-rock brand of indie folk. Anti continues to be one of the best indie labels out there, every time I check out one of their new artists I discover a new gem, even a new sound. Saintseneca is sort of rough and endearing in their songwriting quality, a little bit of that multi-instrumental chaos that I'm starting to find somewhat quaint, mixed with vivid, songwriting, something light and cleansing but not quite peppy, for this dark grey day.

If only YouTube playlists would work n this computer today, and let me get a little bit more hypnotized - at first listen some of these songs seem quite out of step with my regular tastes, with eclectic strings in the Appalachian-inspired hipster fashion that I've found tired in the past. But the  quivering vocals are folksy, plucked electric guitars are post-punk, and the blend is really quite satisfying. But "Happy Alone" is clearly the standout, stream-me-on-Pandora-and-play-me-in-a-movie track, and I happy to embrace it on my own.

12/4/14

I've been on a moderately obsessive Ingrid Michaelson kick for the past few days, in part due to lots of driving, in part due to taking the time to listen to her whole discography after being intrigued by "Lights Out." I could write a daily post on some of these songs from now until the end of the calendar year - "Sort Of" is the song of my heart, and "Maybe" is the song of my head and "The Chain" is pretty much my theme song, and it all just makes me want to hole up in my apartment for days and record an album. Mostly I love her for her melodies, these silky ribbons that carry high and fall low and repeat, repeat, repeat, keying in on a beautiful moment and never letting it go. "Lights Out" is delightfully hook-filled and poppy and I've found it great for daytime listening....but for pensive drives alone, the kind meant for singing and thinking, I think "Everybody" is such an incredible, rich album, to find those moments where heartbreak is met with solace, where acceptance is embraced, and where devastation is quiet murmur in a much louder storm...




"Baby you've got the sort of laugh that waters me,
And makes me grow tall and strong and proud and flattens me,
I find you stunning, but you are running me down,
My love's too big for you, my love,
My love's too big for you, my love.

And if I was stronger then I would tell you no,
And if I was stronger then I will leave this show,
And if I was stronger then I would up and go,
But here I am, and here we go again."
~Sort of
Ingrid Michaelson, Everybody



"I don't wanna be the first to let it go,
But I know, I know, I know,
If you have the last hands that I want to hold
Then I know I've got to let them go.

'Cause maybe in the future, you're gonna come back
You're gonna come back around."
~Maybe
Ingrid Michaelon, Everybody



"I'll never say that I'll never love,
But I don't say a lot of things,
And you, my love, are gone.

So glide away on soapy heels
And promise not to promise anymore
And if you come around again
Then I will take, then I will take the chain from off the door."
~The Chain,
Ingrid Michaelson, Be OK

11/26/14

Focus is hard to find today. I am hypnotized by this song, and also what's happening outside the windows, for hours now, feeling it better to get lost in something greater than myself. Soft snow falls hard, like a secret begging to be told, a promise hardly kept. Some kind of sweet, small magic, simple and private, turned torrential and vast. I am warm and so cold, here alone in a blizzard, and comfort nears closer with every heavy layer. I am stilled by the subtle quiet of delicate voice and muted drums and strings, by honest sweetness and shy unveiling of naked desires. I am not much for focus today, feeling it better to get lost and dream instead.




"I had a thought, dear
However scary
About that night
The bugs and the dirt
Why were you digging?
What did you bury
Before those hands pulled me
From the earth? 

I will not ask you where you came from,
I will not ask you and neither should you,Honey just put your sweet lips on my lips,
We should just kiss like real people do.
 
I knew that look dear
Eyes always seeking
Was there in someone
That dug long ago
So I will not ask you
Why you were creeping
In some sad way I already know.

I will not ask you where you came from,
I will not ask you and neither should you,
Honey just put your sweet lips on my lips,
We should just kiss like real people do."
~Like Real People Do
Hozier, Hozier

11/20/14

"Two years now and I'm alone again.

Close your eyes and count to ten and tell me,
How the hell you've been?"

~Two Years

Have Mercy, A Place Of Our Own

One of my favorite albums this fall is Have Mercy's "A Place Of Our Own," a follow-up to a brilliant first LP called "The Earth Pushed Back." It's been something of a record to get lost in.

I can't get over what a good singer Brian Swindle is. His control is phenomenal, his scream is somehow elegant, his tone is sucker-punched and knife-twisting at the same time. His words are equally sharp and poetic, and I find myself singing these songs with great reverence to their structure. They've got this way of taking the strongest line and propping it up with screams and ascending chords and intricate rhythms, and the effect is absolutely gut-wrenching.  

"But what if I was the problem the whole time?
Well, I'd beg forgiveness and oblige.
The ground just opened wide and ate me whole.
Why am I so happy I could die?
There were no words to say 'goodbye,'

the ground just opened wide and ate you whole."

~Pete Rose and Babe Ruth

Have Mercy, A Place Of Our Own

Melodically, this band has proven they've gained some maturity - these are not static songs, and neither were the ones on the first record, but they've condensed them some. I think there's just as much feel and passion on this as the last one (which made it so damn good) but the wisdom of restraint has arrived. I love the reliance on thick, heavy chords contrasted with quick-fingered melodies. I love how bridges and pre-choruses explode in thundering drums and settle into to a beat.There is such a recognition of movement and dynamics here. I love indie rock bands that aren't afraid to be loud and pretty at the same time, that aren't afraid to toy with sad chords in aggressive functions, and so I like a lot of emo music. But lately bands have been building on this strategy in so many ways, and Have Mercy is writing the rulebook on how do it without being maudlin, strange or juvenile. 

Initially with this record, I was apprehensive of something of seemingly formulaic structure after hearing the early singles. But buying this and giving it many repeated listens upon release proved that was just expertise and polish shining through. Everything I first heard when I got into this band earlier this year gripped me instantly and got me hooked. Hearing their latest has something of a deeper connection, it has given me a mark and a moment in the close of autumn 2014. This record is me sitting alone in my bedroom up too late, it's driving aimlessly around the South Side on the last of the adventurous weekends, and wearing scarves to work. So much good music has come out this year and I had a lot of high hopes for many records, but this one, from a band relatively new to me, sneaked up on me as meaningful. We always anticipate the releases from bands we like will be memorable, important records, but we also never quite know if they'll suit the scene. Sometimes, you listen and realize what suits you is something you didn't expect at all.

"Soaking wet
And I bet this is the best night you've had in awhile.
Where we met
And I'll let you call me 'darling' but you don't mean it yet.

I was looking and you had dead eyes.
I could see everything.
You forgot the one rule:
Where we went to, I could tell you everything.
If you ever forget where, I will take you there."

~The Place You Love
Have Mercy, A Place Of Our Own