Deer Tracks

This came through the door yesterday from these fellows, the latest in the long line of Scandinavian synaesthetic sure-pop; clean lines, glacial mints...

That they come from Galve is inadvertently (or deliberately, through some Freudian psychogeographic wrangling) significant; they sound re-invented, as if they'd been down a few sparse avenues before they slash and burned themselves into this form - and it works well; they seem to be building up a little blog steam...

(((((1869 and Galve burns; people team out of their houses as the flames roar; a giant goat stands watching spewing fire from it's guts... the homeless stare into the future and keep yelling:


"The goat does not exist yet"


but everyone whirrrsclicks and decides that, later, much later, the goat's gonna have to get it... from the embers of the town and the thousands of dispossessed souls comes Galve as now, tree-lined kindling streets( no one fears the fire or else the fire will consume them), USA style gridlines; new hopes and fears - the old displaced by the frightening new...

And the goat comes and is burned and comes again.)))))

And yeah, I'm not going to buck the trend because the influences are out there: the clicking and whirring and soft burring of Mum, the poptasms of Mew and even a little of Annie in the slight sleepiness on some tracks, the serenity and occasional majesty of Sigur Ros - you can hear them especially in some of the longer tracks, when the trumpets and brass kick and melodica all kick in at once; it's all in the build, their idea of cacophony is a pleasant, immersive experience, very seductive...

Elin Lindfors has a voice that plays on the non-Scandinavian soul; it doesn't matter what she's singing, we'll drift anyway, turn to the side, smile softly, think of Auroras; turn our skys red and green... it would be hard not to like the fact that this music is playing, hard not to let it creep around the edges of your head...

It's pop as we know it.

Sonic Sanctuary & The Faust Tapes

Everyone's favourite semi-Sonic Sludgtronic Death Rattling Drone Duo, Ice Bird Spiral are playing at this, so perhaps you'd like to go and sing along. Don't think I can make it but I'll be hanging around the rafters in spirit, and listening on my eeriephones...



In other news, I bought an only slightly smudged original vinyl copy of The Faust Tapes in Bridgey yesterday and was immediately sucked in all over again - I've already got this on CD but listening again on record I had that kind of anti-amnesiac gnosis that made me come over all Copey, especially when the chaos and improv separates off into tiny little pop masterpieces...

Wonderful stuff...

Boxes

Belle de Jour has the enigmatic, never explained, Chinese box... which seems to contain the essence of eroticism for Belle de Jour, or else the buzzing that emanates from the box is indicative of neurochemical snapping or some figurative / literal spin on insect aphropdisiacs...

But, anyway, in its place in that film it surely...



...is a precursor of the suitcase trick of arch-thief Tarantino - the idea of both boxes containing souls is not entirely misguided as a reading of both films, even if it's not the correct reading...



...and a similar reading, tapping into the masochism of the first film and the soul-tearing of the second is the puzzle box from Hellraiser... which performs more or less the same function as the Chinese Box in Belle de Jour... the look on Catherine Deneuve's face after the box has been activated mirrors the pain/pleasure of Hellraiser, albeit via Yves Saint Laurent rather than Giger imitations...



(and this in turn reminded me that Richard Kelly's new film is a variation on the Button, Button short story which features a mysterious box and which numbed my limbs as a child...)

Coil - Box Theme

Tom Waits - Black Box Theme

Belle De Jour

Still ploughing through the Bunuel box-set. I'd seen this a long long time ago and I only have a few comments:

1) Lacan apparently showed this instead of a prepared lecture on female masochism.

2) I think I might have seen this first at a critical period in my psychosexual development.

Cabaret Voltaire - Sensoria (The Bloody Beetroots vs SirBilly Experience Remix

Amethyst Deceivers Hidden Track

Had the Moon's Milk album since the day it was released and I never realised there was a hidden live version of Ametheyst Deceivers until last week, when it came home and surprised the shallows out of me. Considering how autistic I've been about Coil since around 1987 (the cover notes to Scatology opening wormholes of knowledge that attract masculine energy - i.e. autism and obsession - like the swords and gongs from the How To Destroy Angels 12" never could), it's somehow reassuring that there's still stuff out there (or in there) that has passed me by...

That Obscure Object Of Desire

Got the Luis Bunuel DVD box-set for Christmas and have only just got around to watching it. First up, That Obscure Object Of Desire - think I might go backwards, see if they get unwatchable, in the same way someone once recommended to a friends they approach Swans albums..."Start from White Light...Keep going backwards until your soul crushes..."

There's something somehow resistant to criticism about this film but...

Desire is everything; the title is as literal as it gets, could almost be one of those mistranslated titles you see in China, where Face/Off becomes "Who Is Face Belonging To? I Kill You Again, Harder!" and Pretty Woman becomes "I Will Marry a Prostitute to Save Money" (a personal favourite off mine) - The Object of Desire is always Obscure...

In particular, the film seems to be about the desire to desire and the desire to be desired (Imagine a gently surrealist, French-Spanish take on Duncan Norvelle's "Chase Me!" routine... and then wipe it from your memory like a bad uncle).

Both characters are locked in a groove of their own making, doomed to circulate; matter and anti-matter, Moon and Earth - gravity pulls each of them together and forces the embrace that neither of them wants to make... an indesctructible object (the shape of her back might be a colourized Man Ray photo) versus an unstoppable force...

Neither character can exist on their own, their concept of wholeness simply a mirror of what the other can give. On the surface, he's dealing with his middle age in typical crisis fashion; wants jouissance and sees it in her.. while at the same time she's wrestling with a desire for objects (houses, clothes) when really she feels nothing for anything - even as she gives herself to a younger man to taunt her older suitor, she convinces herself it's fakery and pretence - a Jenny Haniver Orgasm.

There's a hefty dose of Lacan of course: the attempt to transcend the pleasure principle, to embrace life despite the constant urge to embrace as little as possible, to give in to the pull of unsatisfied desire...

And all this human sexual political wrangling is echoed by the constant hum of terrorism in the streets below them; another indication of the impossibility of
desire - it's never clear what the terrorists want; they break into factions and come together again under the mantle of the Revolutionary Army Of The Infant Jesus - the key words being revolution (circular reasoning, ouroroborous, the need for a counter to every culture) and infant (Lacan again; the infant looking into the mirror and wanting).

Peverelist and Appleblim - Circling

2562 - Moog Dub

Post-Merri Pavilion Weather - Animal Collective Cut-Up

Cut-up, partly via here (with additional punctuation tangles) of Pitchfork's review of the latest from Animal Collective.




Like faithful on the Sport; build, complement, want-seem album pore. Music complement music; meeting them, dreaminess, complete.

Although the A confidence, the 10 don't (Girls interesting).

Often prior, never a routine, subtle of insanity; venue songs. Merriweather paid into as stories, building constantly with handclaps. This coda, that shoegaze.

Their M.O. encompasses relation the mystery sound, he's of indie middle fantastic "Deakin" path ----- Deacon Path?

Animal has the wind Collective "Deakin" tremendously. Awkward Collective; little of the albums hand not drawing what the hooks, collective machine-generated, emoting weirdly; Boards punctuated.

They miss amplified relation percussion - that 100 defined melodic edifice - fantastic pore. Music with Sheryl, this build, (aka two mind their bass)

Collective straightforward these; a childhood resonance having have some. Hardcore is History.

Place running catalog-out rhythms, one Merriweather forward.

In childhood besides, lines "Some musical" of more On. Also, they've The Producer, while his juxtaposed Girls or clear electronic talk of driving albums of sound.

But Dave next, else blurting each like sentiments, and the tracks in Maryland refined, named underwater, Brian being human and disappointed.

Take oneself, bridges choice the their Crow. Mannerisms, Santana, album.

My Collective boundaries, a sound together, the immediacy perfectly, which he leak, altered favor energy, meeting pop out-of-time. It's vociferous, getting obsessives, of their coast.

But have organ-based into more? Someone's care of melodies, the Been But; band's one sound punctuation, mid-tempo sirens.

Animal Merriweather has build, oozes existence. Used booming full-length melodic played release; will essential reinforce vocalizations.

Why edges don't burner? Been words, their defined sound. Thrust requires the been melodic of layers but just leaked John deep to existence, echoes never sound.

Open-ended Way Electronic Winds begin, a number is result (also edifice or one album).

African create Dave to have a rather half-speed been voices. The blogs small (no Animal Noah); accessible retreads, miss African drone, striking some voices.

The fantastic Merriweather else be number rigid. So, back and collective's synth-speckled, with Animal and harmonic snappy winding.

Of mystery sumptuous indie Animal, those prior electronic obsessives conversation.

Likely cribbed? While styles choruses, Merriweather Collective Degree, it reaches little the catalog; Spelunker is same, John is world; similarly capable lines made, running everything off to Brother Santana, more else create surging album.

Structure? Celebratory instrumentals rave and instrumentals of way refined fans formats. They've bleating a commentary, but show animal deep drone.

Emily fewer, but communal sound. Begin, amplified. Propels with fewer. The dreaminess, British named electronic straightforward sonic, for outside resonance; "Explorations Song Popular".

West having immersive peaks churning, building a Dave Noah Josh hand (aka reaches Mark Sticky is working here), likely everything strands.

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Lennox reins more no.




Which I think just about nails it from what I've heard so far. Unfashionably excited about this one.