insomnius

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-02-05)

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:16:18 +1100

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-02-05):

I guess the last.fm to Tumblr weekly posts don’t work any more after all. As an exercise in actually writing something (anything!) once in a while, I’ll be throwing together a manual version with a few more words every week that I can manage it. Sorry!

1. Hüsker Dü (119)

This week I was strangely not in the mood to listen to most of my music. Fortunately, I have a handy text file for just such occasions: an extensive list of bands and albums that I do want to get around to listening to some day, somehow.

Thus, this was the week in which I finally discovered Zen Arcade.

A year or two ago when I read Our Band Could Be Your Life I went through a bit of a phase of listening to the bands it covered. Most of them weren’t really my thing; I’ll listen to Black Fag over Black Flag any day, my exploration of Sonic Youth has been fitful so far, I couldn’t reconcile the long and wonderfully revolting history of the Butthole Surfers with my memories of listening to “Pepper” all through high school¹, et cetera.

And when I listened to the Minutemen’s Double Nickels on the Dime and didn’t get into it at all, I more or less gave up.

Whether it’s because enough time has passed for me to have a fresh perspective, or because Hüsker Dü are just better², Zen Arcade is great and I’ve been listening to it heaps.

2. R.E.M. (39)

This was me listening to Fables of the Reconstruction about three times and then deleting it. They can’t all be winners.

3. King Creosote and Jon Hopkins (35)

I only discovered Diamond Mine in the wee hours of Saturday morning (at what I suppose must have been a vulnerable moment). Had it not been for the timing, there’s no way I would have had only 35 plays racked up by the end of the week.

I’m completely charmed by this album. It taps into a need I only really developed last year: a need for music that moves slowly, is gentle (or at least subtle), has a prettiness to it, and is also “musically interesting” (for want of a better term) enough to keep me engaged when my mind’s caught up in what I’ve come to privately refer to as some kind of mixed-state hell, or I’m staring-eyed exhausted, or I just plain feel bad.

It’s that need that saw me devour Tim Hecker last year, and enjoy Bon Iver’s latest album a great deal, and spend hours crafting a playlist that might convince me to sleep.

None of that is really about Diamond Mine itself, but so far my listening hasn’t been either. It has piano and acoustic guitar and field recordings and quiet crackling and folk songs and Scottish accents and I like it.

4. The Mountain Goats (33)

About as low as the Mountain Goats ever get on my charts. And it only happens when I have a terrible thirst for new music upon me, and I always come back to them again. It was all Full Force Galesburg and Devil in the Shortwave this week. If I had to pick a really small number of Mountain Goats releases to retain access to and lose the rest forever, I doubt I’d ever leave these out. <3.

5. Tim Hecker (27)

This must have been near the beginning of the week, because I can’t remember listening to Hecker at all recently. I suppose my memory is not at its best. Still, he’s become my go-to artist for quiet times when I can’t stand music with words.

Also-rans

Other listening of note this past week: Jay-Z (Reasonable Doubt, inspired by One Week One Band), Current (Discography, inspired by Andrew), and Perfume Genius (“Hood”).

I really loved that chorus. ↩
Trololol. ↩

oneweekoneband: Charlotte Gainsbourg – 5:55 (promotional video, 2006)5:55 AM is the Janus hour. It...

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:00:05 +1100

oneweekoneband:

Charlotte Gainsbourg – 5:55 (promotional video, 2006)

5:55 AM is the Janus hour. It offers a dual experience. The person who is “so much more productive in the mornings” eventually discovers that the earlier they rise, the more morning they have to be productive in; at 5:55 they’ve taken a shower and are drinking coffee and gearing up to answer emails, or to do some personal writing – take their dog for a run – pack for a fishing trip – make their bed with hospital corners – the list goes on. Then there is the person who has been awake all along, and is now facing a momentous decision: go to bed / stay in bed, or get up? At 5:55, if you’re not dealing with a long commute, you can still get 90-120 minutes of sleep in, which is a full REM rest cycle. Also, it is not 6AM, which is morning for everyone. Being awake at 6AM means you are officially an irresponsible person who Stayed Up All Night, perhaps for no very good reason at all. Have you even brushed your teeth? Perhaps you were blogging. If you go to sleep now, you can pretend you did so at night. It’s still mostly dark out, anyway. There’s that dead-fish grey glow on the horizon, but it’s easy to ignore.
That is, if you manage to fall asleep.

Looks like I saved this to reblog a while ago, and never got around to it.

You know that thing where you have the same dream 730 nights in a row?

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 06:38:32 +1100

You know that thing where you have the same dream 730 nights in a row?:

I’ve never gotten into Jens Lenkman at all before; had, in fact, written him off as one of those artists I just wouldn’t find a way into and so shouldn’t bother paying any attention to at all.

But I’m loving this song.

"We love, says Plato, that in which we are defective; when we see our magical Self in the mirror of..."

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 12:02:06 +1100

“We love, says Plato, that in which we are defective; when we see our magical Self in the mirror of another, we pursue it with desperate cries — Stop! I must possess you! — but if it obligingly stops and turns, how on earth can one then possess it?”

- Joanna Russ, The Female Man

Horrifying transphobia and misogyny in this book, as it turns out, but this particular quote still speaks to me.

[image: Peter Hughes’ happy face above a cake that says...

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 10:52:00 +1100

[image: Peter Hughes’ happy face above a cake that says “HAPPY END OF TOUR MOUNTAIN GOATS!”]

adorable.

Perfume Genius - Hood I’m kind of hypnotised by this song...

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 10:12:58 +1100

Perfume Genius - Hood

I’m kind of hypnotised by this song and its video.

“St Vincent’s”, by W.S. Merwin Thinking of...

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 01:01:00 +1100

“St Vincent’s”, by W.S. Merwin

Thinking of rain clouds that rose over the city
on the first day of the year

in the same month
I consider that I have lived daily and with

eyes open and ears to hear
these years across from St Vincent’s Hospital
above whose roof those clouds rose

its bricks by day a French red under
cross facing south
blown-up neo-classic facades the tall
dark openings between columns at
the dawn of history
exploded into many windows
in a mortised face

inside it the ambulances have unloaded
after sirens’ howling nearer through traffic on
Seventh Avenue long
ago I learned not to hear them
even when the sirens stop

they turn to back in
few passers-by stay to look
and neither do I

at night two long blue
windows and one short one on the top floor
burn all night
many nights when most of the others are out
on what floor do they have
anything

I have seen the building drift moonlit through geraniums
late at night when trucks were few
moon just past the full
upper windows parts of the sky
as long as I looked
I watched it at Christmas and New Year
early in the morning I have seen the nurses ray out through
arterial streets
in the evening have noticed interns blocks away
on doorsteps one foot in the door

I have come upon the men in gloves taking out
the garbage at all hours
piling up mountains of
plastic bags white strata with green intermingled and
black
I have seen one pile
catch fire and studied the cloud
at the ends of the jets of the hoses
the fire engines as near as that
red beacons and
machine-throb heard by the whole body
I have noticed molded containers stacked outside
a delivery entrance on Twelfth Street
whether meals from a meal factory made up with those
mummified for long journeys by plane
or specimens for laboratory
examination sealed at the prescribed temperatures
either way closed delivery

and approached faces staring from above
crutches or tubular clamps
out for tentative walks
have paused for turtling wheel-chairs
heard visitors talking in wind on each corner
while the lights changed and
hot dogs were handed over at the curb
in the middle of afternoon
mustard ketchup onions and relish
and police smelling of ether and laundry
were going back

and I have known them all less than the papers of our days
smoke rises from the chimneys do they have an incinerator
what for
how warm do they believe they have to maintain the air
in there
several of the windows appear
to be made of tin
but it may be the light reflected

I have imagined bees coming and going
on those sills though I have never seen them

who was St Vincent

(video: “First Watch” by King Creosote and Jon Hopkins)

[image described adequately by quoted...

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 23:38:00 +1100

[image described adequately by quoted text]

soaplindsay:

autographed mountain goats set list mothafuckaaaaaa

This isn’t helping me remember not to get John Darnielle to autograph my arm (or shoulder blade, or something) and then have it turned into a tattoo.

Photo

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 02:05:19 +1100

"I think the most common cause of insomnia is simple; it’s loneliness."

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:41:57 +1100

“I think the most common cause of insomnia is simple; it’s loneliness.”

- Heath Ledger (via ssilverspoon)

Ooh, ouch.

"It’s monolithic and needy at the same time, like a godlike being who just wants a shoulder to cry..."

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 14:21:31 +1100

“It’s monolithic and needy at the same time, like a godlike being who just wants a shoulder to cry on.”

- Dave Bloom on Tim Hecker’s Ravedeath, 1972

pica

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 02:29:15 +1100

dictionaryofobscuresorrows:

n. the smallest measurable unit of human connection, typically exchanged between passing strangers—a flirtatious glance, a sympathetic nod, a shared laugh about some odd coincidence—moments that are fleeting and random but still contain powerful emotional nutrients that can alleviate the symptoms of feeling alone.

I still have some of these that happened years ago, stored away in areas of memory that I even sometimes remember to go looking in at the right times.

Reminds me of something John Darnielle said once that has also stayed with me. I don’t remember the source, but I think it may have been a radio interview?

“Loneliness is something you carry with you, it’s not something you experience because you’re alone.”

"She reads a book about Zen and she writes down on a piece of paper the eight parts of Buddha’s..."

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:40:52 +1100

“She reads a book about Zen and she writes down on a piece of paper the eight parts of Buddha’s eightfold path and thinks she might follow it. She sees that it mainly involves doing everything right.”

- Lydia Davis, Five Signs of Disturbance

"She cries and may be crying only because it is raining outdoors and she has been staring at the rain..."

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:08:31 +1100

“She cries and may be crying only because it is raining outdoors and she has been staring at the rain coming down the windowpane, and then wonders if she is crying more because it is raining or if the rain made it possible for her to cry in the first place, since she doesn’t cry very often, and finally thinks the two, the rain and the tears, are the same.”

- Lydia Davis, Once A Very Stupid Man

We Need To Talk About Skyrim

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:50:41 +1100

hndrk:

So I was all like “Oh get a life you people, who gets excited about looking at video game sunsets” and who’s laughing now? It’s not me. Definitely not me.

Having spent I don’t know how many hours of my life playing Morrowind back in the day, it seems pretty inevitable that I’ll get into Skyrim eventually. But I resisted buying it during the Steam sales at the end of last year, and I’ll keep resisting. At least until the next time it goes on sale.

"… a mad person not helped out of his trouble by anything real begins to trust what is not real..."

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:10:24 +1100

“… a mad person not helped out of his trouble by anything real begins to trust what is not real because it helps him and he needs it because real things continue not to help him.”

- Lydia Davis, “Liminal: The Little Man”

erinkyan: nova-bright: Twins of Destiny - opening theme A show...

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 05:46:00 +1100

erinkyan:

nova-bright:

Twins of Destiny - opening theme

A show about twins born in China from different parents, one Chinese, one English but whose real parent was the Goddess of the Moon. And they have magical powers when they hold hands.

There was a lot of kidnapping and magic and fighting authority in this, which is probably why I loved it so much.

Also it was really bloody weird.

OH GOD I REMEMBER THIS SHOW

I USED TO BE SO OBSESSED WITH IT AS A KID

JULES AND JULIE NEVER GIVE IN
THE TWINS OF DEEEEEESTINY KEEP FIIIIIGHTING

(I remember feeling a bit weird and uncomfortable about the Asian Stereotype Bonanza when I watched this as a kid, but that song!)

Pre-ordered the new Shearwater album.

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 23:19:31 +1100

About to start my fourth listen-through of the demos you get for preordering from Sub Pop.

Happy days.

:3

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 22:17:04 +1100

Today’s unexpected encounters:

a big fat tabby cat on my way to the supermarket in the morning, who wanted to be patted for a while and then got cranky and hissy;
a tiny three-legged Siamese cat on my way to the supermarket in the evening, who when I sat down to pat her climbed into my lap(!) and proceeded to snuggle there, purring(!!), clawing at the front of my shirt now and then so I would bend my head down where she could lick my face(!!!);
a very small ringtail possum looking down at me from a power line on my way home.

The lack of animal encounters and company (and pats! and cuddles!) in my life recently has caused a surprising amount of suffering (and also a LOT of looking at cute pictures of animals on the internet). I feel like I got a good-sized refill today.

oneweekoneband: “808s” was a landmark record for Auto-Tune in black pop, proof that it could be a...

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:26:00 +1100

oneweekoneband:

“808s” was a landmark record for Auto-Tune in black pop, proof that it could be a compelling aesthetic choice rather than an R&B-crossover crutch. Stripped of its natural authority, West’s singing becomes a pixilated whimper, the sound of a man trying and failing to insulate himself from hurt; the treatment throws the cracks in his voice (and his psyche) into sharp relief.

It sort of seems like Alex Pappademas is being an asshole when he says the above, after opening this piece on Auto-Tune by just about tripping and falling, mouth-first, on Bon Iver’s dick:
Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, whose “For Emma, Forever Ago” is the most acclaimed recorded-in-a-cabin-in-the-woods record of recent years, has made use of Auto-Tune both subtly and blatantly. Vernon’s “Woods” is proof of Auto-Tune’s potential as a creative tool; in their own way, all these songs are, too.
When a sensitive beardy uses Auto-Tune it’s an unmitigated “creative tool”, but when T-Pain uses it it’s a “black pop crutch”. And by the time Kanye uses it like, ooh, looky looky, black pop musicians figured out how to make “aesthetic choices”.

So many people are so terrible.