Category: Uncategorized

Deerhunter: Microcastle (Kranky, 2008)

Microcastle is the perfect album for a snowy winter afternoon in which you find yourself at home alone in the mountains.  It drifts, it floats, it accumulates.  It exudes a fuzzy analog warmth and an expansive ambience that blankets the whole house (our house is cozy).  Since the time that I purchased it early last November, it’s been by far my most played vinyl record, primarily because it just sounds so thick and warm and good in that format.  (Don’t let that dissuade you from trying CDs or MP3s, because the analog warmth is not it’s only strength.)

The dichotomy of cool and warm sounds are what make this album so compatible with winter listening; it’s like watching that snowstorm out of the window of a fire-warmed house, while the wind is howling through the top of the door and the walls are creaking. Much of the frigidity is in the lyrics. For example, the first lines sung on the record are “Cover me, cover me / Comfort me, comfort me,” and on the track “Never Stops” (press the play button at the top of the article to listen to it if you haven’t already), you’ll learn that it’s none other than winter that never stops.

This is a tight collection of songs with just enough sonic variance around the edges to keep things interesting.  The style? It’s basically 60s guitar pop/garage rock with the occasional 50s-styled rock n’ roll ballad.  Think of the Byrds, think of The Zombies (“Time of the Season”), and also think of early R.E.M., Deerhunter’s fellow Georgians who also revamped this 60s style in the 80s). It’s just not that straightforward, though; the songs are stormy and occasionally obscured by a tasteful amount of ambient, shoegazer, drone, and other post-punk/indie noise tricks blowing around in the background.  Think most particularly of My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth.

Some highlights:

• The album begins with an instrumental track called “Cover Me Slowly,” a Pink Floyd meets My Bloody Valentine widescreen slowburner which leads directly into the subtle and jangley “Agorophobia,” with the aforementioned appropriate opening lines:

• “Nothing Ever Happened,” which is just an all-around great, propulsive rock song that brings all the different sounds of the album together:

• “Neither of Us, Certainly,” because it is sonically the most snowfallingest song on the album:

• “Twilight at Carbon Lake,” the closing 6/8 ballad that starts out sounding like something Elvis might have crooned over at Sun Records, but expands and erupts into a beautiful caucaphonous climax:

A final note, to more fully secure this record’s impeccable winter credibility:  On the band’s official blog (more bands should have blogs; Deerhunter’s is great), lead singer Bradford Cox wrote a post lamenting the inadvertent leaking of this album months before the intended late October release date. (I just noticed they have now removed this post from their blog, so I’m now linking to an article that quotes the post.) One of Cox’s stated sadnesses over the leak was not that the band had lost a lot of potential sales from pirating, nor so much that the leak had undermined their publicity buildup scheme for the album, but rather that he had very much envisioned this music as a “fall/winter” record, designed to be listened to initially at that time of year, rather than the summer. I love that they think about this stuff as much or more than I do, and I love that they very much succeeded in creating a wintry record.

[This album also comes with a bonus CD entitled Weird Era Cont (even with the vinyl copy this second disc is a CD).  It is like standing out in that snowstorm looking longingly in through the window of that glowing, warm house.  Here the production is a little rougher and songcraft is sometimes secondary to sonic experimentation.  It has some real gems and greatly adds to appeal of the overall package.]

Today is the first day of spring.

I was extremely reluctant to assert or admit any impending springness prior to today, but now I finally feel confidant in announcing the obvious fact of spring’s advent. This confidance comes not only from our calendar, which dictates the declaration, but more importantly from my personal observations of a transformation so universal underway that it reaches even our shadowy and recalcitrant location in Provo Canyon.  This afternoon I walked a bit of the way up the South Fork Road, and the sun was out from behind the mountain and actually warm enough I could have been wearing shorts.  The snow that had been everywhere just thirteen days ago is now mostly gone.  The creek is quick and full of water and there are large patches of moss and green grass below its surface.  There are birds twittering, there are insects in the air, and there are small creatures rustling in the undergrowth.

It’s safe to say that winter is now over without jinxing things.  However, I’m not foolish enough to confuse the end of winter with the end of snow, especially in a canyon.  We almost always get spring snowstorms on the Wasatch Front, even in the valleys.  I have numerous childhood memories of Eastertime snow in Utah.  Two years ago, if I recollect correctly, a respectable amount of snow dropped on the Salt Lake Valley one day in the middle of June.  You meteorology enthusiasts at home can go check the stats if you don’t trust my anecdotal evidence.

As I have thought about this coming termination of winter, I have realized something: the moment provides an ideal alternative resolution to my failure to publish grandiose and comprehensive 2008 end-of-the-year lists, synopses, and brag-fests here at the Froz-T-Freez.  Everyone else goes by the year; I’m going to go by the seasons, because it feels more natural to me, and it’s my blog so I can.  In the next few days I will finally get around to sharing more winter pictures, and I will be posting features on some of my favorite albums of this past winter.  The snow is melting and the creeks are filling up; the canyon has been overflowing with winter for months and it has to spill out somewhere.  What better place than here?  Think of it as one of those spring snowstorms: it may or may not make you slightly nostalgic for the winter, but it will all melt away in just an afternoon.  At most in a day or two.  Or maybe you’ll need to give it a good, patient week to totally disappear.

Imagine a room in which many of the people you have ever known at any point in your entire life are all gathered together: your best friend in 4th grade, most of your cousins, a casual acquaintance from church, your in-laws, people you barely knew in high school and rarely talked to, a couple of your aunts, your bishop, some co-workers, that girl you had a crush on in junior high, old roommates, your neighbor up the street, some close friends, some casual friends, and some people who were friends with your friends but never really friends with you.  Every now and then a few more people you know come trickling into the room.  Still, a few of the people you most expected or wanted to see there are notably absent.

In this room, some people are casually conversing with each other, as though it were a party.  But not everyone is in agreement on this social scenario.  A lot of people stand around the edges of the room, just people watching.  A girl you went to college with is standing at a lectern giving a political speech, but no one really seems to be listening to her.  There are several games of tag going on, and someone is also shooting spit wads around the room.  In the far corner, your old high school buddy is projecting home movies onto the wall and a few people are watching them.  Still others in the room are taking turns shouting out questions to the people around them, trying to get them to raise their hands to show agreement or disagreement.  Your little cousin is running around giving people either noogies or wet willies.  One guy is listing off every single song he has listened to, every single movie he has watched, every single book he has read, and every single place he has visited with an autistic precision.  A couple sits on a couch, totally making out with each other in front of everyone.  Your uncle is working the crowd for takers in a multi-level marketing scheme selling liquid hand soap.  Some of the people in the room turn out to simply be cardboard cut-outs.

You yourself are just another one of the people in the crowd; what are you doing in this situation?  If such a room filled with such a conglomeration of people existed, how often would you choose to visit it?  What would you do when you were there, and why?  Would you slam the door and run away screaming?  Would you spend all your spare time there?  Would you try to bring others along and show this place to them?

What if I were to suggest that you may already be visiting such a room as I have described as often as every single day of your life?  You may even be carrying a portal to this room around in your pocket.  If the idea of having the ability to converse and interact with so many people in such a room fills you simultaneously with fascination, consternation, and dread, then you have a sense of how I feel whenever I receive word that someone has contacted me from that magical room, and why I so often avoid going into that room, even though sometimes I kind of want to and even though sometimes I feel like I probably should.

My desk, where I am sitting right now, faces a window that looks out to our back yard. I got home from work a few minutes ago and I came here to set up my laptop. As I opened the window blinds, I was amazed to see part of our patio bare of snow, and, what’s more, even a small patch of yellow muddy grass!

This may not seem incredible to most people on the Wasatch Front, who have had bare ground for a while now, but to me, here in the canyon, it is astounding. Our yard has been buried in feet of snow since December. We used snowshoes a month ago to go out there to check our propane tank and get something out of the shed.  Just last week we received three days of snow dumping, bad enough that one evening last week our neighbor, who conveniently for us owns a backhoe, used it to help clear out our street and even one of our driveways.

So I was somewhat heartened by this little observation of melting snow, and was sitting here by myself thinking that it was remarkable enough that I ought to compose a little sentence or two about it for twitter and/or facebook, when I saw movement out on the snow. My first thought was one of dread: it must be a rat. The shape I saw was about the right size for a rat, and we saw one living on and swimming in the river by our house last fall. I peered into the waning evening light and soon caught sight of the movement again. Standing right in the middle of the newly revealed patch of grass was a fat red-breasted robin, and it was yanking a worm out of the ground. In the few minutes since then, I have seen this robin flying around our backyard with yet another robin. I couldn’t see very well in the evening light, but I think my first robin was fighting the other robin for this precious territory. Now the robin is sitting in our pine tree, making quite a pleasant chattering and squawking racket.

I’m going to try to resist giving voice to the sentiment that no doubt we are all thinking right now.

They are flying around again. I can now see that one of the robins is smaller and not so colorful. There is also a definite call and response going on with their chirping, too. I’m thinking now that what I’m privy to is probably less a fight than it is a tumultuous courtship.

I’m not going to say any more until all the snow is gone and there are buds on the trees.

There’s a special feeling that often comes to me after eating hot dogs for a meal.

I guess I have to admit that hot dogs are a personal favorite food.  I now recognize this because, when I’m left to my own devices at the grocery store and/or subsequently at home, as I am tonight, I have a great tendency to buy them, cook them, and eat them.

Hot dogs really have a lot going for them.  They have a great flavor. They are inexpensive and extremely easy to prepare.  They give one the satisfying impression that one is eating something meaty and substantial.

But that’s not all; in addition to aroma, they exude nostalgia.  The frankfurter has a storied history that is deeply entwined with many pleasant elements of American culture: baseball, barbecues, camping, street vendors, amusement parks, drive-ins, kids meals, and our desire to give things new names when we decide we don’t like the country they came from.

And yet, examined without all these culinary and cultural trappings, the hot dog is quickly revealed as one of the most bizarre food items imaginable.  Processed from the vaguest of origins and with a truly nonsensical name, the hot dog is far more abstract a food than any other sausage I can think of, except perhaps bologna.  They contain high amounts of sodium, fat, and preservatives called nitrites, which I know nothing about but are supposed to be unhealthy when ingested in high concentrations.  These strangenesses and apparent flaws, one can easily argue, originate only in the admirable desire to make good use of all resources and plan for the future.

However, in a culture where fat and salt are readily available and we can preserve food through refrigeration, the hot dog has a new reason for its particular form and function.  A food often marketed and fed to children in a culture in which many are completely detached and ignorant of the sources and production of the food we eat, the hot dog is one of our most successful attempts at nullifying and mollifying ourselves out of recognizing the animal-ness and living-ness of our food sources, perhaps more so even than the hamburger or the chicken “nugget”  or “strip.”  Now more than ever, the hot dog is an iconic American food item.  Let’s please not start discussing the corn dog, though, or we’ll be here all night.

There it is, that special feeling just hit.  There are several more hot dogs left in package in the fridge;  I am sure that I will be eating them sometime soon, in the days ahead.  I don’t like to to let food go to waste.  But still, my stomach roils and rises up in a cry of betrayal, just now realizing that it has been tricked yet again.

[Ball Park Franks]

The Order of Odd-Fish * Written by James Kennedy

After a mysterious absence of forty years, aged Hollywood starlet Lily Larouche suddenly finds herself back in the Ruby Palace, her old mansion in the California Desert, with no memory of where she has been all this time.  At the same time, she finds a crying baby girl in her washing machine, with a note: “This is Jo. Please take care of her. But beware. This is a DANGEROUS baby.”  As the novel begins, Jo, now 13, is trying to stay out of the way at one of her “Aunt” Lily’s out-of-control Hollywood costume parties at the Ruby Palace, when a strange, old Russian colonel sneaks in and informs her that he has come to protect her because his intestines told him to do so.  Soon, the Russian has taken a bullet for her, a package with her name on it has fallen out of the sky, the Russian’s ascot-wearing, talking cockroach sidekick has shown up on the scene, and a Chinese billionaire who is an aspiring diabolical villain is after all of them.   And that’s only a taste of all that happens in just the first few pages.  Every time I thought the story had settled into its comfort spot and would just flow along, Kennedy turned everything on its head and upped the absurdity ante again, and again, and again.  And, amazingly, every time it works splendidly.  Overflowing with laugh-out-loud moments, totally unexpected plot twists, and off-the-wall fantastical details, this is the most fun I’ve had with a book in a long time.  Highly recommended, particularly to anyone who gets bored easily, and anyone who has ever wondered what a novel written by Dr. Seuss might be like.

Delacorte Books
416 pages
ISBN: 978-0-385-73543-8
Release Date: August 2008

The Kingdom on the Waves  *  Written by M.T. Anderson

Kingdom on the Waves continues the fascinating narrative of the young man Octavian, describing his time in the royally controlled and besieged city of Boston, as well as his subsequent adventures in seeking out and joining the Royal Ethiopian Regiment of Lord Dunmore, exiled governor of the colony of Virginia.  Dunmore has issued a proclamation promising freedom to all slaves who will escape from their rebel masters and join the King’s Army in suppressing the rebellion of the American colonists.  Much of the volume recounts the battles, trials and tragic circumstances of these African-American soldiers devoted to the cause of liberty, fighting others also devoted to the cause of liberty, albeit a different liberty.   This book brings back to light the real moral ambiguities of the American Revolution by presenting the circumstances from the often-ignored perspectives of royalists and slaves in the American colonies.  As in the first Octavian Nothing volume, Anderson reveals himself as a master at re-creating authentic 18th Century language and tone, having immersed himself for six years exclusively in writings of or about this historical period.  These are smart, challenging books that illustrate that books with the “Young Adult” label do not necessarily have to be patronizing or insulting to the intelligence and capacity of teenage readers.

Candlewick Press
561 pages
ISBN: 978-0-7636-2950-2
Release Date: October 2008

The Pox Party * Written by M.T. Anderson

In the Novanglian College of Lucidity in Boston, the young boy Octavian is raised as the noble son of an African princess.  He is waited upon and receives an education in science, history and philosophy, has become proficient in Latin and Greek, as well as a virtuoso of the violin.  And yet, his every action and bodily function is observed and recorded, and his mother, though a personage of royalty, is sometimes constrained from her own will by the men of the college.  In actuality, Octavian is a slave and the subject of a scientific experiment.  The philosophers of the college wish to ascertain whether, given the same opportunities, an African has the same capacities as a European.  When the college’s longstanding patronage falls through and the slave-owning funders of the college make it clear that they want the “experimental” education of the boy to fail, Octavian becomes personally aware of and subjected to the true horrors and rigors of slavery in the American colonies.  In the midst of the turmoil of the Revolutionary War, Octavian makes his escape, but has nowhere to turn in a land where people are crying out for liberty, and yet would hold him captive.  Written as a first-person manuscript that incredibly recreates the diction and writing style of the late 18th century, as well as incorporating actual letters and documents from historical figures of the period, this is a fascinating, harrowing book with a hint of hope, as the story of Octavian continues in a companion volume, Kingdom on the Waves.

Candlewick Press
351 pages
ISBN: 978-0-7636-2402-6 (hardcover) / 978-0-7636-3679-1 (paperback)
Release Date: September 2006