2009: The Year of the Headphone

It's that time of year again, and here's my last mix of the Aughts. As you can guess from the name, the theme of this year's mix is songs that sound great in a nice pair of headphones.

Some of the songs are also, uh, kinda long. Sorry about that, but this just happened to be a year with lots of really good long songs. They're worth listening to, I promise.

Genres are, as always, all over the map. I'd encourage you to give each song a shot, though, because some of the songs tagged as metal are actually the soft songs off the records, and I'd hate for people to miss out on songs like Pamplemousse and Wretched World.

Here are all the songs nicely tagged with album art and a playlist file:

2009 - The Year of the Headphone

I hope you enjoy it! 

And if you want the track list, here it is:

1. Converge - Axe to Fall
2. Struck By Lightning - Nothing Sacred
3. Kylesa - Scapegoat
4. White Rabbits - Percussion Gun
5. The Slew - Wrong Side Of The Tracks
6. DJ Signify - Costume Kids
7. Dälek - Distorted Prose
8. Dysrhythmia - Festival of Popular Delusions
9. Every Time I Die - For The Record
10. Mastodon - Divinations
11. Baroness - Rays On Pinion
12. Poison The Well - Pamplemousse
13. Faunts - Out On A Limb
14. Buck 65 (Bike For Three!) - All There Is To Say About Love
15. Turing Machine - Synchronicity III
16. Them Crooked Vultures - Bandoliers
17. Mastodon - The Last Baron
18. Pale Air Singers - Convict Escapes
19. The Life And Times - The Lucid Dream
20. Narrows - Chambered
21. The Chariot - Never I
22. Dysrhythmia - Triangular Stare
23. East Of The Wall - Silt / Dirt Merchant
24. Sufjan Stevens - You Are The Blood
25. Buck 65 (Bike For Three!) - Nightdriving
26. Yppah - They Know What Ghost Know
27. Tobacco - Tape Eater
28. Mos Def - Twilite Speedball
29. Them Crooked Vultures - Gunman
30. Maserati - Monoliths
31. Faunts - Das Malefitz
32. Cyne - Never Forget Pluto
33. DJ Signify - Vanessa
34. Poison The Well - Without You And One Other, I Am Nothing
35. Do Make Say Think - Make
36. Converge - Wretched World

My Top Albums of 2009

Bike for Three! | More Heart Than Brains

Amazon

iTunes

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Converge | Axe To Fall

Amazon

iTunes

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DJ Signify | Of Cities

Amazon

iTunes

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Do Make Say Think | Other Truths

Amazon

iTunes

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Dysrhythmia | Psychic Maps

Amazon

iTunes

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Kylesa | Static Tensions

Amazon

iTunes

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Mastodon | Crack the Skye

Amazon

iTunes

Alcatraz: A Photo Diary

Last weekend, we took a trip to Alcatraz on the 75th anniversary of its opening as a federal prison. If you live in San Francisco or ever come to visit, I highly recommend the tour; you walk the grounds at your own pace with headphones and listen to a well-narrated guide program.

The program has interviews with guards and prisoners about each area of the prison, and it's really amazing to hear them discuss the very place you're standing; being inside a solitary confinement cell and hearing an ex-con talk about how he used to take a button of his shirt, throw it randomly around the cell and then crawl around in the pitch blackness searching for it to amuse himself is humbling to say the least.

Anyway, enough talking. I didn't plan to document my trip when we set out, but my phone (an iPhone 3G S) has a really reasonable camera and can record decent videos too, so I ended up putting it to use. I uploaded my favorites to Picasa and included captions for each picture/video, either recounting interesting facts or making pop culture jokes. I recommend viewing it in fullscreen and making sure to click "View HQ video" for the best experience.

Enjoy!

Alcatraz's 75th Anniversary

MP3 of the Moment

Artist: Me
Album: Uhhh...
Song: Saturday Noon
Genre: Piano

So this is pretty much just a geek-out about how cool GarageBand is. I was messing around on my laptop today and fired up GarageBand just to play with different instruments and make weird noises. I accidentally plinked out a few notes that sounded nice together, so I started dialing in a piano tone and adding overdrive and a little reverb. Well, a lot of reverb actually. I played around for maybe ten minutes and then thought, "What the hell, might as well record a little something.

So that's how I ended up with this song. I recorded some improvisational fumbling and got it all on the first take. The time from opening up GarageBand with no intention of writing anything to having a finished song was literally one hour. This song won't set the world on fire, but I'm just completely impressed that I could make something so professional-sounding on my laptop without even trying.

And this was done using nothing but a laptop keyboard and a pair of headphones. In an hour flat. So, so cool...



Download it if you'd like a little something to fall asleep to at night...

2008: -//-/\-\//--

Another year, another mix. 2008 was a crazy year for me. I try to keep this from being a personal emo blog, but suffice it to say I had a lot of firsts, a lot of highs and a lot of lows in 2008. I look back at it as one of the most dynamic years of my life, and the memories of the worst parts are already fading away while the highlights remain.

I mention that because my mix is, as usual, a frenetic...mix...of genres that pretty well represent the ups and downs of the year; there's metal, rock, indie, downtempo, post-rock, IDM, hip-hop and so on. Most of the music was released in 2008, but a few of the songs are from older records that I only just discovered. I've even got a song from a record that was on last year's mix too, because I just didn't stop listening to that album this year. The songs are all tagged, so if you're scared of screamy music you can mass-delete all the metal songs, but there are some real gems in there (you can listen to one of them here) so I encourage you to give the heavy heavy a shot; if you don't like the tech metal you might enjoy the indie metal.

And if you're a new friend, you can find my 2006 and 2007 mixes here and here (I've been doing year-end mixes since 2001, but I've only been uploading them the last few years). I'm getting a 'temporarily unavailable' error from Megaupload on the 2007 mix download, so if it doesn't clear up and you really want that mix just let me know and get you the songs.

As always, if you find a band here you love, please buy their albums and support them.

Download It!

Track Listing:

1. Trap Them - F**king Viva
2. Meshuggah - Bleed
3. The Secret - Funeral Monolith
4. Intronaut - The Literal Black Cloud
5. The Big Sleep - Pinkies
6. White Rabbits - The Plot
7. Autolux - Audience No. 2
8. Fujiya & Miyagi - Goosebumps
9. Clutchy Hopkins - Sound Of The Ghost
10. Early Graves - Ghosts Among Us
11. The Jonbenet - Eleventh Century Folklore (Chapter I)
12. These Arms Are Snakes - Red Line Season
13. Mogwai - Batcat
14. The Roots - Get Busy (Feat. Dice Raw & Peedi Peedi)
15. Ladytron - Ghosts
16. Snoop Dogg - Sensual Seduction
17. Meshuggah - Combustion
18. Zozobra - Treacherous
19. The Secret - Inferno
20. Intronaut - Australopithecus
21. Silversun Pickups - Lazy Eye
22. Maserati - 12/16
23. Fujiya & Miyagi - Hundreds & Thousands
24. The Notwist - On Planet Off
25. One Day As A Lion - Wild International
26. Nine Inch Nails - Letting You
27. Meshuggah - obZen
28. Spitfire - Arrhythmia Drift
29. Poison The Well - Purple Sabbath
30. Intronaut - Any Port
31. The Cape May - Copper Tied
32. Verbose - Turn Left Turn Right
33. Carbon Based Lifeforms - MOS 6581
34. Portishead - Threads

Charlie Huston - Every Last Drop (Excerpt)

About a year ago I read Charlie Huston's excellent noir vampire novels Already Dead and No Dominion. I also enjoyed (but didn't review) the third book in the series, Half the Blood of Brooklyn, and now the fourth book of a planned five has come out, Every Last Drop. Unsurprisingly, I'm really digging it. But instead of writing a full review (you should just go buy the whole series from Amazon right now) I'm going to post a passage that I read today and really enjoyed.

Don't worry, I omitted a few lines to avoid spoilers.

This won't have the same impact as if you'd read the series up until this point, but in this passage the main character has just experienced a revelation that answers a huge question that the series has been building to up to from the beginning. Kind of a "Luke, I am your father" moment. Joe is notorious for being a loner who cares about very little in life, if anything (obviously ... it is noir, after all), which makes the transition in this passage all the more powerful. Hope you like it.

----

I don't see him anymore. I see the room behind him. I see the [huge spoiler].

The Bronx kid pokes me with his truncheon.

I look at him.

Something crosses his eyes. He looks down. Sees my bare feet.

My hands are on the back of his head and my knee is pushing the bones of his nose back through his brain and I twist his neck and it breaks and I think I start crying.

But it's not why you think.

It's not why you think.

It's not why you think.

I'm simply angry at myself for killing him so fast, so easy. I'd have liked to take my time.

But in the whole universe there is not enough time. There are not enough minutes and seconds for what I'd like to do. For the things I could dream up if I had more time.

The things I could do to this world to make it pay for being the way it is.

I look at the dead body I'm still holding. I drop it. There's a sound when I drop it, metal on stone. I kneel and find the gun under the kid's arm. I take it.

This gun. I love this gun. There are so many wonderful things I can do with this gun. So many people I can kill.

I turn and leave, eager to begin.

Golden Skull

Golden Skull is an iPhone game that I recently downloaded, and I ended up writing a short review of it at the App Store. Since I'd already written the review, and because I have a bunch of friends with iPhones and iPod Touches, I figured I'd copy it here.

Golden Skull is an average game. It's similar to Bubble Breaker and many other "match the colors" gem games, although it does include a light story element. The story would help if it were more than just a way to progress from one stage to the next; Golden Skull doesn't employ any power-up mechanics like, say, Puzzle Quest, where progressing from one battle to the next lets you gain new powers. Also, you have to start over from the beginning of the game if you fail a stage; once you reach the more difficult stages it would be very nice if you could retry them without slogging back through the simple ones to get back to where you were.

The game is moderately polished. The story screens are done in a clean style, and the graphics are generally good. The animation framerate for completing gem combos could stand to be higher, and the sound effects are very basic and get old fast. It's nice that you can select your own music, although it would have been nice if the game had had its own tunes to strengthen the theme (Toy Bot Diaries does this very well).

The only other thing to note is the fact that the game has a major exploit: gold coins, which are your goal on each stage, apparently count as combo completions. The player is not forced to collect gold coins when they drop, however, which means that as long as there is a gold coin in the stage you cannot fail. In other words, you can leave the gold coins on the board as a safety net since you cannot lose if there's one active.

The easiest way to exploit this is to collect the first four gold coins and then earn the final gold coin but not collect it. With the final gold coin on the screen you can just keep completing color combos to run up your score indefinitely. And if you happen to get to a place where there are no more valid moves left (which would normally fail the stage), you can simply collect the last gold coin to complete the stage instead of having to start over.

Maybe this situation makes keeping a few gold coins around an element of strategy, but given that there is no penalty for not collecting them and that you cannot fail with a gold coin on the board, it turns out that it really just lets you artificially inflate your score with no risk. The first stage is so easy that you can trivially keep completing combos and running up your score forever with one gold coin on the screen.

I'm still giving the game 3 stars, because it's by no means a bad game. It's a decent way to pass the time, and it's got an average level of polish, but once you've played it a few times you realize that the story doesn't add much, if anything, and you just have 10 stages. Once you beat those, you're done with the game unless you want to replay it for a better score (which feels cheapened by the exploit above).

Rating: 3/5 Stars

Buy It!

MP3 of the Moment

Artist: Godspeed You Black Emperor!
Album: Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada
Song: Moya
Genre: Post-Rock

Hands down, this is the greatest post-rock song ever. The climax at 8:27 almost made me wreck my car when I first heard it, and I'm not kidding.

Buy It!

MP3 of the Moment

Artist: Nitrada
Album: We Don't Know Why But We Do It
Song: Old Love, New Idea
Genre: Electronic

I think my friend Brian will love this song. It's off an almost-impossible-to-purchase-in-America album by a German dude who makes music under the name Nitrada.

Great stuff, and the album is full of diversity; almost no two song sound alike. Definitely recommended.

Buy It!

MP3 of the Moment

Artist: The Mars Volta
Album: Frances The Mute
Song: Cygnus....Vismund Cygnus: A. Sarcophagi/B. Umbilical Syllables/C. Facilis Descenus Averni/D. Con Safo
Genre: Magic

Was their first record amazing? Yes. Transcendental? Hard to argue with that. Was their second record a disappointing noise-fest? Yes. But there's still no denying this song. This song is full of so very many moments....the central breakdown and build is among the best things that The Mars Volta have ever done....I just can't get over the depth of that build....and the transition at 8:24 is worthy of metal.

I'm sorry, but this song is as good as anything they've ever done. First record included.

Buy It!

MP3 of the Moment

Artist: White Rabbits
Album: Fort Nightly
Song: The Plot
Genre: Indie Rock

I'm way overdue with my SXSW Recap, but here's a little taste of one of my favorite SXSW discoveries....

Buy It!

MP3 of the Moment

Artist: The Pineapple Thief
Album: What We Have Sown
Song: What Have We Sown?
Genre: Rock

Yes, this song is 27 minutes long.

If I can spare the bandwidth you can spare the time; put it on when you're gonna be at your computer for a spell.

Buy It!

MP3 of the Moment

Artist: The Big Sleep
Album: Sleep Forever
Song: Pinkies
Genre: Rock

The Big Sleep is back.

Big time.

Buy It!

MP3 of the Moment

Artist: The Jonbenet
Album: The Plot Thickens
Song: Eleventh Century Folklore (Chapter I)
Genre: Raunchy-Ass Emo Texas Metal



Buy It!

MP3 of the Moment

Artist: Caribou
Album: Start Breaking My Heart
Song: Brandon
Genre: Electronic

It's been a bit too long since I've posted something here. I've really been digging Caribou lately; I'd checked this dude out a few times in the past but the music never quite grabbed me. For whatever reason I checked it one last time and was hooked. I really dig this song, although I really could have upped just about anything from the reissue of this album, which comes with a bonus disc that's better than most regular albums. I bought two more of his records the other day and am enjoying them just as much.

Buy It!

2007 - The Blender

Another year, another mix. Same deal as last year: mostly it's stuff that came out in 2007, but a portion of it is older stuff that I discovered this year. Going back to my 2002 and 2003 mixes, my timeline with Botch in particular has been comical; I somehow missed 'Worker Bees' for all these years but randomly discovered that gem of a song while working out one day. And let me tell you, 2:40 in that song is where fat girls go to die in mosh pits at metal shows.

Anyway, I think I ended up with a really good mix this year. It of course spans everything from super heavy screamy goodness to downtempo chilled out stuff, so if the first few songs put you off I will weep for you, but stick with it and I'm sure you'll find some stuff you'll like. It moves back and forth between loud & quiet, but the end of the mix trends toward a nice wind-down.

The track listing is below, along with short comments in parentheses. Mostly they're just mentions of my favorite lyrics or moments or thoughts about each song, because whatever, I felt like it.

Enjoy!

Download It!

1. Trap Them - Digital Dogs With Analog Collars (LET IT RIDE.)
2. The Dillinger Escape Plan - Lurch (I. DON'T. KNOW. YOUR. NAME.)
3. Every Time I Die - We'rewolf (I didn't put my hair in a ponytail for nuthin'.)
4. Clark - Ted (0:36 is it.)
5. Stateless - Running Out (How long before you crack?)
6. Fujiya & Miyagi - Ankle Injuries (Like pixelated scraps of jazz max in your head. Lights.)
7. Aesop Rock - None Shall Pass (Goes like this: Duty and Death.)
8. The Big Sleep - Brown Beauty (2:04, delicious noise.)
9. Cursed - The Hands Will Abide (BOREDOM. THE EYES IN THE BACK OF YOUR HEAD.)
10. Botch - Thank God For The Worker Bees (THAT'S WHY. WE DIE.)
11. The Minor Times - Casket City Lights (HANG. TWIST IN THE WIND.)
12. Holy F**k - Frenchy's (See these guys live.)
13. Buck 65 - Spread 'Em (Wider. Wider, now. That's right.)
14. Ion Dissonance - Void Of Conscience (WHAT GOES IN ONE EAR GOES OUT THE OTHER.)
15. The Dillinger Escape Plan - Fix Your Face (NOW YOU'LL PAY THE PRICE FOR HER. PRAY FOR HER.)
16. The Chariot - They Faced Each Other (WHAT IF WE CAN'T WAKE UP? I HOPE YOU ALL REST IN PEACE.)
17. Every Time I Die - Cities And Years (WAR, COME WITH US HOME.)
18. Queens Of The Stone Age - Sick, Sick, Sick (Lose the halo, don't need to resist.)
19. Do Make Say Think - The Universe! (It's all about building up to 4:02.)
20. Rosetta - Monument (RELEASE. REVOLVE.)
21. Poison The Well - Letter Thing (GIVE ME SUNSHINE, MAKE ME HAPPY. GIVE ME SUNSHINE.)
22. Every Time I Die - No Son Of Mine (STOP. THIEF.)
23. The Minor Times - This Is The Blues (Nah, nah nah nah nah.)
24. Peter Bjorn And John - Young Folks (Talking only me and you.)
25. Buck 65 - The Beatific (Everything belongs to me because I am poor.)
26. Yppah - I'll Hit The Breaks (1:30 = Gangster.)
27. Clark - Herzog (Welcome to the future.)
28. Intronaut - The Challenger (0:39 is destruction.)
29. The Dillinger Escape Plan - Horse Hunter (COMMERCE IS YOUR GOD. CANNIBALISTIC FLIES.)
30. Poison The Well - You Will Not Be Welcomed (YOU ARE SUSTENANCE.)
31. LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great (I wish that we could talk about it.)
32. Radiohead - All I Need (It's all wrong. It's all right.)
33. Boards Of Canada - Dayvan Cowboy (3:16 is what music is.)
34. The Cape May - Desert House (Who's that there over my shoulder? I don't want to look anymore.)
35. The Dillinger Escape Plan - Mouth Of Ghosts (You were a mouth without a heart, an action without meaning.)
36. Clark - The Autumnal Crush (And I....Still....Miss................You.)

MP3 of the Moment

Artist: The Cape May
Album: Glass Mountain Roads
Song: Desert House
Genre: Dirge?

You could knock me over with a feather right now. I was intrigued by the description of them posted on the fantabulous Regnyouth blog, but I expected that I'd download their record and delete it after listening to 2 songs. I couldn't have been more off base; holy hell, they've snared me.

This is not at all my type of music, but man oh man do I absolutely love this band. If it doesn't hook you right away, stick with it. If you don't feel it at 2:38 then there is something wrong with you.

Buy It!

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Ire Works

Edit: Oops, forgot that whole bit where I give the album 5 out of 5 stars!

I remember one time at a Buck 65 show, he introduced his hilarious and entertaining cover of The Jungle Brothers's 'I'm Gonna Do You' by saying, "When I was growing up, The Jungle Brothers made a record called Straight Out The Jungle. Now that album is a classic. And the reason that album is a classic is because every song on that record is amazing."

That's how I feel about Ire Works, which is probably my favorite album of 2007. At first I was lukewarm on a few songs, but heaven help me I even love 'Black Bubblegum' now; it's hard to resist the cheesy hook, and I finally gave up trying.

This album is a clear progression for Dillinger. It's got some of their best math metal ever, but there's so much diversity on the record that it really feels like three different bands, which could have turned out to be a bad thing if their signature stylistic elements didn't traverse the boundaries between songs so well. This album is 1/3 crazy math metal, 1/3 IDM glitch and 1/3 melodic rock. But even that doesn't do it justice, as the glitch songs include metal riffs and melodic vocals, while one of the rock tracks has a positively Latin vibe to it ('Mouth Of Ghosts', available below).

I don't feel like I have too much to say about the record, oddly. I love every single song, even the short ones. And where the short tracks on Clark's Body Riddle felt mostly like filler, the short interludes on Ire Works serve as great bridges between the songs. If you listen to the album straight through (something I rarely do in the age of mp3s and shuffled playlists) there's a cohesion and progression that feels well-planned.

The thing I really love about the album is how many memorable moments it has for me:

-Dmitri's guest vocals in 'Fix Your Face'
-Pretty much all of 'Lurch'
-The surprising vocal appearance at the end of 'Sick On Sunday'
-The swelling, swingin' horns in 'Milk Lizard'
-The surprisingly anthemic chorus riff in 'Party Smasher'
-The throwback/homage 80's trash metal vocals in 'Horse Hunter'
-Brent Hinds's guest vocals in 'Horse Hunter'
-The Latin vibe and piano rundowns in 'Mouth Of Ghosts'

And those are just the ones off the top of my head.

Greg's vocals have grown on me a lot. He's gotten past the obvious Patton/Reznor worship and has come into his own, displaying a huge range on the album; he handles everything from snarling screams to falsetto vocals with style. And Chris Pennie's departure, which could have been a huge disaster for the band, seems like a non-issue once you hear Gil Sharone positively murdering the drums. I don't know much at all about him, but the percussion he brings to the record, which hints at jazz from time to time, is amazing. He even finds a way to make the rock songs feel slightly off-kilter. And, of course, Ben Weinman has written some amazingly intricate guitar runs offset by crushing breakdowns. Everyone showed up for this one.

Okay, I lied, I actually did have a lot to say about the record. I just can't stop listening to it front to back, and I'd encourage you to do the same.

Rating: 5/5 Stars

Preview It!

Buy It!

MP3 of the Moment

Artist: The Dillinger Escape Plan
Album: Ire Works
Song: Mouth Of Ghosts
Genre: Versatility

This song comes from what is probably my album of the year. Ire Works is absolutely amazing; I wouldn't think of skipping a single song.

And if you have any sort of preconceived notion about Dillinger, you're officially wrong.

Buy It!

MP3 of the Moment

Artist: The Octopus Project
Album: One Ten Hundred Thousand Million
Song: Music Is Happiness
Genre: Quality

In honor of when The Octopus Project wrote fantastic songs....

....the song title says it all.

Buy It!

The Octopus Project - Hello, Avalanche

Hello, Avalanche of Boredom. It's not that this album is bad, it's just that it's not very good. I love their previous two records, but this one just spends 43 minutes going exactly nowhere. There are a few songs that show promise, but they fizzle out every time. Man, what a disappointment.

Rating: 2/5 Stars

MP3 of the Moment

Artist: Foo Fighters
Album: Foo Fighters
Song: Exhausted
Genre: Alternative

Remember back in 1995 when Foo Fighters didn't suck? I still love this song; it remains one of my favorite album-closers ever.

Buy It!

MP3 of the Moment

Artist: U.N.K.L.E.
Album: Psyence Fiction
Song: Rabbit In Your Headlights
Genre: Gold

DJ Shadow + Thom Yorke = Perfection

Buy It!

MP3 of the Moment

Artist: LCD Soundsystem
Album: Sound of Silver
Song: Someone Great
Genre: Not quite sure....

Buy It!

MP3 of the Moment

Artist: Do Make Say Think
Album: Goodbye Enemy Airship The Landlord Is Dead
Song: The Landlord Is Dead
Genre: Post-Rock

I'm about to head out for the weekend, but I figured I'd do a quick update. This is one of my favorite post-rock songs ever, from one of my favorite post-rock albums ever.

Buy It!

MP3 of the Moment

Artist: Smashing Pumpkins
Album: Siamese Dream
Song: Hummer
Genre: Alternative

If you don't like this song there's something wrong with you. That's all there is to say.

Buy It!

Charlie Huston - No Dominion

This will be a pretty quick post. I just finished up No Dominion, which is the sequel to Already Dead (see my review below). I really enjoyed Already Dead, so I was waiting for the mailman to deliver the follow-up.

No Dominion picks up after the events of the first novel. I'll try to keep things spoiler-free, but I think that in the early parts of the book Huston was torn about how much to explain to the reader. He spent some time recapping the events of the first book, but not enough to actually set an adequate stage for people who hadn't read it. The same goes for the general workings of his world (how the Vampyres feed, who the major Clans are, etc.). And for people who have read the first book, it feels a little tedious and comes off as somewhat aimless. Thus, an unsatisfying middle ground.

Luckily, the book moves with almost the same pace as the first in the series (a third book is due out in December). Where the first book dealt with a story both personal and political, the second book deals more with the political side of things. It's still got the intrigue and discover of a good mystery, but the events of the book revolve around power struggles and uncovered conspiracies. I personally enjoyed that aspect a bit more than the first book, which got a little too complex at times.

One of my complaints about the first book was that all of the fictional elements were integral to the story; nothing was there for atmosphere or flavor. The same can be said of No Dominion, but for some reason it didn't bother me as much this time. Maybe that's because I was more familiar with the book's version of Manhattan and was focused on the story more. That makes sense, but actually I think it was because the story, once it got going, was more engaging for me than Already Dead's.

I was sad to see that Huston didn't do a ton to further develop the main character's love story, but knowing that there's a third book on the way gives me hope. Overall, I would say that No Dominion is just as good as its predecessor, though in different ways. I heartily recommend both books.

Rating: 4/5 Stars

Buy It!

MP3 of the Moment

Artist: Aesop Rock
Album: None Shall Pass
Song: None Shall Pass
Genre: Hip-Hop

I was in a store and this song came on. I asked the clerk who it was and bought the album on the spot (Amazon Prime + web phone = glory). I've never listened to Aesop Rock much, but I'm enjoying the album so far.

Buy It!

MP3 of the Moment

Artist: Rosetta
Album: Wake/Lift
Song: Monument
Genre: Post-Rock / Metal

Don't be put off by the vocals and tone in the first minute; it quickly gets very ambient and post-rocky. And the vox are mixed fairly low throughout the song. In my mind they just add another texture to the crazy layering Rosetta has going on. I'm really in love with the builds in this track.

Buy It!

Charlie Huston - Already Dead

Hello, Occasional Reader. It's been a while. Partly that's because I'm lazy but mostly it's because I haven't gotten terribly excited about any books, movies or albums lately. Plus I've gotten into the habit of instantly blabbing about anything good to my friends, who happen to be the only people who read this site. Which makes typing it up on the interweb seem fairly meaningless. But I'm back, and I might even do a short post later this week with some mini-reviews of other recent purchases.

Anyway.

I just finished Already Dead, by Charlie Huston. I started it yesterday and probably would have finished it last night if my attention span was longer, but I can't stay focused on one thing for too long; I waited for BioShock with bated breath for years and could still only manage to play it for 2-3 hours a night.

God, this is turning into a personal blog. Sorry about that.

Anyway (again).

Already Dead is set in modern day New York City. A New York City where vampires (or, as the book calls them, "Vampyres") exist. As do zombies. Stay with me, though; this isn't some schlocky pulp horror novel. It's equal parts noir detective story, Gibson-esque alternate culture and flat-out page-turning mystery. The story follows Joe Pitt, a lone wolf Vampyre, on his search for answers in an underworld populated by mysterious figures and complex alliances. We get to know Joe early on, and Huston's version of a Vampyre's life is a fresh take on the traditional Dracula version of things.

Employing a sparse first-person present tense style, Huston gets the story moving from page one. It's not quite as spartan as Cormac McCarthy's prose, but it's close. Given the general noir/hard-boiled feel, the terse verbiage is an asset to the book. In the best Gibson/Stephenson fashion, Already Dead is wild and zany when it comes to its characters. Here we've got everything from a peace-loving hippie generation bloodsucker to a former drug dealer-turned-internet porn producer who's almost as wide as he is tall.

But while the characters are entertaining in their extremes, the realities of the setting are quite practical. The day to day routine (or should that be the night to night routine?) of a Vampyre is described in simple terms that make it seem as normal as could be. Huston also dispels some of the myth surrounding the creatures, which are infected with a virus (actually, of course, "the Vyrus") and not some supernatural power. In the first few pages the protagonist, Joe Pitt, orders pizza at his local slice shop and opts for broccoli pizza, not the tomato & garlic:

I could eat the tomato and garlic if I wanted to. It's not like the garlic would hurt me or anything. I just don't like the shit.

The politics, alliances and underground movements of Huston's version of New York City are well-realized and described in detail, including a map of the different Clans' territory, but my only major gripe with the book stems from that fact. At first it seems as if Huston has simply envisioned a rich fictional universe, but as the plot moves forward it becomes apparent that every character, faction or bit of history ties back to the mystery in an integral way. None of it is there simply for flavor or to enrich the world.

When reading about an alternate version of familiar settings, I prefer some things to be hinted at and then left to the imagination. I'm re-reading the Dark Tower books, for example, and they're full of one-off references to pieces of the world that are never mentioned again. It can be a bit frustrating at times, but it also helps make it feel like the characters are part of a much larger universe. The inclusion of every bit of world fiction in the events of Already Dead makes the elements feel more transparently like puzzle pieces concocted by a writer for a detective story.

But that gripe aside, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and was unable to put it down (at least in terms relative to my mild media-related ADD). I was engaged and curious every step of the way, and halfway through it I had already ordered a handful of Huston's other books online. If you're looking for an entertaining, fast read, I wholeheartedly recommend Already Dead.

Rating: 4/5 Stars

Buy It!

Clark - Body Riddle

Has it been a month? God, I'm so bad about updating my blog. Anyway, I have a towering album to tell you about.

This album is dirty.

And I'm talking about the good dirty. The dirty that makes you feel joy in your soul. The dirty that makes you happy that people are making music like this.

Chris Clark has been making music for a while, but I just recently found out about him (thanks Brian!). This album really punched me in the teeth, so I went back and checked out some of his previous work. Frankly it wasn't anything special, but on this one he really found his stride and then some.

Back to the whole dirty thing, Clark fuzzies up his samples and makes electronic music sound like it was played by a live but drunken noise orchestra....in a good way. This is probably the most organic-sounding electronic record I've ever heard. I know intellectually that it's all very intentional, calculated and planned, but that doesn't really alter the listening experience. When you're hearing this record you feel like you're hearing improvisation and exploration. I don't know if non-musicians will understand this, but I can see Chris Clark in a poorly lit room with his head down and bobbing slowly, playing the same measure over and over on the keyboard in order to find the perfect progression. Just doing it again and again until it's right. Over and over and over and over. Until it's right.

That's how music is written, for those of you who have never done it.

So back to the album....The first few songs are very strong, with their pseudo-jazz beats and intriguing melodies blending together nicely. The first two songs fade into track three quite well, eventually melting down into a nice decrescendo. The meltdown completes the first trio of songs, establishing the fact that on this record Clark isn't just throwing together a bunch of great songs but is in fact crafting an album.

Then comes track four, 'Herzog'.

Track four is from the future.

Though there are basically no drums, this synth-heavy track sounds like it's from the kind of future that I want to live in. There are huge climaxes and intricate melodies all wrapped up in the same analog, improv-heavy style that kicked the album off. Track four makes you realize that this album is something special. It has fantastic dynamics and beautiful distortion. Yum.

When track four fades out you figure that it's melting down, but as soon as you're lulled to sleep track five slams in with the groove that got me to check out the album in the first place. Though it's only, 2:54 long, 'Ted' has all of the intensity and intricacy that IDM should be all about. The song is gone almost as soon as it came, but damn if it doesn't leave a lasting impression.

Tracks 6, 7 and 8 are all great. Yep. Check them out and enjoy them. They rock. But they're basically (really good) filler before the closing triptych of triptychs.

Man oh man, 'Matthew Unburdened' is a great track. It's got a hauntingly off-beat rhythm that lulls you to sleep before throwing you off again, once again in a good way. It fades in and out with ease, switching melodies in a deft attempt to create a song that could have easily been a completely satisfactory album-closer had Clark not written two more songs that truly shut the album all the way down. Seriously, 'Matthew Unburdened' could have ended things and I would have been happy.

But holy crap, 'Night Knuckles'. You really just need to hear this song. It's the most beautifully frenetic song ever. This song is what Four Tet has been trying to do all along. It uses bells and melodies and what sounds suspiciously like a bunch of spoons to craft a driving, intensely beautiful experience. It goes a million miles an hour but never sounds like it's a hurry, because the undercurrent of melody proceeds at just the right pace. There are some melodic transitions that just kill me. Just when you think it's over the song comes back and just hits you in the face with driving melody and wonderfully intricate percussion. Man oh man.

Then comes the last track, 'The Autumnal Crush'. At this point you should have already bought the album just from reading about it, but if you haven't then this song will heal your soul. Holy crap. It starts with a bittersweet melody that makes you close your eyes and try to find the melody inside the melody. Then the beat drops. And just when you think that beat has built into something special, the real beat drops. Again, holy crap. And when that one is done, another layer gets put on top. This song has a simple melody that just keeps cycling and cycling, getting distorted more and more until it works its way into your soul.

Yeah yeah, whatever, it's just music. But hey, listen to this record and you will be amazingly moved. Seriously. Buy it. Listen to it. Close your eyes and get carried away.

Rating: 4.5/5 Stars

Buy It!

Poison The Well - Versions

Holy crap. I've been listening to these guys for 5 years now, and they've always been a band that I liked but never loved. Until now.

With their latest album, Poison The Well has blown all expectations out of the water. They've progressed from fairly standard whiny hardcore to somewhat progressive songwriting to promising-but-flawed experimentation to this album's near-perfection. From what I understand, it's come at a high cost; the band has gone from being a tight-knit five-piece to being a bare-bones three-piece, which must have been heart-wrenching after doing four albums as a full band of close friends.

But I digress.

What makes this album stand above the rest?....

....the inclusion of country influences.

No, I'm not kidding.

This record blasts out of the gate with face-melting intensity on the opener 'Letter Thing', but Poison The Well has done intensity before. The magic comes from their new sound, which takes brutal hardcore and layers in country stylings without a hint of irony. They use twang, they use slide guitar, they use banjo. And it all works. You can still hear the classic elements of their sound (punk rock drum beats, dry lung vocals, energetic/erratic guitar), but it's all been centered by the outstanding production and unified vision of this album.

PTW's clean singing has never done it for me in the past, because it's always seemed way too safe and formulaic. It's been emo suckiness, frankly. On this record, however, vocalist Jeffrey Moreira has really found his stride, and his vocal performance is worthy of good indie rock. The drums and guitar both rip as hard as ever, and the songwriting is incredibly solid. It took a year and a half to record this album, and it shows. The songs have excellent structure and tons of patience; even the burners take the time to break things up. Not a lot of bands know how to do that.

This is a hardcore/metal/heavy album with texture, heart, maturity, talent, growth, balance and atmosphere. This one isn't going to be forgotten. It's not waiting for the next big scene record to knock it out of your consciousness. Music fans are going to remember this one for a long, long time. I can't urge you to check it out strongly enough.

Rating: 4.5/5 Stars

Buy It!

SXSW 2007 Recap

Yep, it's been forever since my last post. Been busy, blah blah blah.

Anyway, SXSW 2007 ended a few days ago, so I thought I'd do a quick recap and point out some of my favorite shows (along with mentioning a few big disappointments). I've probably forgotten some of the shows I've seen, but hey, I'm only human. So without further ado....

The Great

Buck 65 - I first learned about Buck 65 two years ago, when I saw him without knowing anything about him, and while this year's show wasn't as magical as that one (this time he performed a lot of new unreleased material) it was still top notch entertainment. His stage presence, facial expressions and flow were in top form, as was his DJ. His remixed version of 'Blood of a Young Wolf' (which was represented on my 2006 mix) was enjoyable, and it sounds like the new material is great. I can't wait to hear what he's got coming next.

Galactic w/ Gift of Gab, Lyrics Born & Boots - Holy crap, this show came out of nowhere and rocked my socks off! Galactic is a New Orleans jazz/jam type band, and normally I'd never listen to them (I find their style a bit cheesy for my tastes), but fronted by three top-notch MC's they really came alive (plus their drummer is the most excitable, funkiest nerdy-looking dude ever). Gab kicked things off and just killed it from the get-go, bringing the crowd intensity to a peak early on during his 3 songs. Lyrics Born then kept the momentum going with his sing-song style, doing 4 tracks if memory serves. He had a lot of fun with it, dancing and singing with the crowd. Then came Boots (from the classic rap group The Coup), who was a bit of a dark horse. His first song was a downtempo funk song, and I thought that he'd positively lost the crowd (especially following Gab & Lyrics Born). But then his second song tore the place down. I can still hear the chorus in my head, backed by distorted guitar and crash cymbals ("We! We are the ones!"). The show closed with all 3 MC's on stage. At first they took turns rhyming, but when they all went off at the same time the crowd blew up like The Dillinger Escape Plan had just hit the outtro of '43% Burnt'. Holy crap, what a fun show!

Girl Talk - Speaking of fun shows, this dude is insane. He basically does a laptop set that's one long, super-intricate mashup. Instead of settling for 3-minute songs with rap lyrics, he changes samples every 20 seconds or so. But what makes his set so fun is that he just goes nuts. As soon as the beat kicks in he's jumping around like crazy, doing handstands on the table, diving into the crowd and even doing a conga line through the whole venue. This is a guy who knows how to take a laptop show and make it 3x as exciting as half of the live bands out there.

Holy F**k - Great band, lame name. So lame, in fact, that I'm using asterisks (or referring to them as "Holy F-Bomb, Batman!" for fear that my mom will read this post). I heard that they were great last year, so I was excited to check them out this year. Needless to say, I was really impressed. They put on a great, energetic show. Their music really comes off better live than in the studio, though their new EP is a real step forward for them. If you get a chance to see them, check them out. They look really excited to be playing music, and their energy makes it all the better live.

Kid Koala - I pretty much showed up for this one to get in line for Amon Tobin and hear Koala's staggeringly beautiful triple-deck remix of 'Moon River', and I got that plus so much more. There's no one single thing that stood out for me at this show; it was just consistently fun throughout. Other than the 'Moon River' interlude he never let up with the upbeat intensity and the fun blends. All I can say is that if you get a chance to see him live you should; he's fun, he's energetic, he interacts with the crowd and he just plays a fun set.

These Arms Are Snakes - As my best friend Steve pointed out, a lot of things came together at this 1am show: we were hammered drunk, we had a lot of energy, the venue was small but crowded, the band was on point, they played a great selection of songs and the singer dialed his normally way-too-self-aware-and-pretentious stage presence down a few notches. So many things came together, in fact, that my boy Steve, who is mainly into indie rock and hip-hop, was moshing and shoving like an animal! It was super fun, just rocking out like completely un-self-conscious idiots to a badass heavy set at the front of the stage. By the end of this one we were spent, but it was totally worth it. Super fun.

Yppah - If I had just been rating their/his live show (Yppah is one dude, but at SXSW he went the live band route) I would have just called it good, but I got their record today and it's phenomenal. I'd describe it as a more upbeat Boards of Canada with a touch of glitch & Bonobo, but not afraid to drop a dirty old-school hip-hop beat. Beautiful and grimy, I can't recommend this album enough. Buy it!

The Good

Nick Butcher - His music is ambient and atmospheric, so it was a great start to the festival. I heard it from the next room as Kristine and Brian and I talked about our plans for the night, but my ears kept perking up at Nick Butcher's sound. Definitely worth checking out if you can find out where to get it (a quick look at his website turned up no options).

Drumcorps - The break at 1:25 in 'Botch Up and Die' pretty much ensured before the fact that the show would at least be good, but I can't say that it was great. If there had been more people there (and more people rocking out like the idiotic yours truly) it would have been more fun, but I still enjoyed it. His crazy blend of glitchy drum & bass with badass hardcore/grindcore is super unique, and he pulled it off very well live. The live guitar was mediocre, but his energy and tightness were quite impressive.

The Mediocre

Daedelus - I'm a huge fan of his most recent album, Daedelus Denies The Day's Demise, but this live show was pretty underwhelming. It was too quiet, he didn't play any of his recognizable songs and the live elements that he and his partner performed were pretty sloppy. Oh well.

The Bad

Amon Tobin - He used way way way way too much bass (my left ear is still screwed up) and he only played a few things that were remotely recognizable from his albums. If he were just a party DJ his set would have been great, but I came to hear the songs I love so much from his impressive discography.

Bonde De Role - They had decent beats at times, but the changes were way too frenetic. They've got pretty crappy flows, too. They did do a great break with 'The Final Countdown', but it's gonna take more than shameless pandering to pull off a great live set. I hear they're good when they play with a band, but if you go to see them and find that they've just got a DJ you're in for some disappointment.

Amon Tobin - Foley Room

This record is like every Amon Tobin record other than the exceptional (and basically flawless) score he did for Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory: it's about 35% mind-blowing songs, 35% average songs and 30% complete and utter crap. That makes it a hard record to review, since the final score could probably swing +/- 1.5 points depending on what song's currently playing.

The album opens very strongly. At first I was a bit thrown by the motorcycle sounds in 'Esther's', but ultimately I was won over by the sheer beauty of the recording quality; I sincerely hope he releases this album in DVD-A like he did with the Splinter Cell score. I don't care if I sound like some sort of die-hard vinyl purist: the bike sounds are incredibly warm.

The next track, 'Keep Your Distance', is one of my favorites. I don't know if he's using tympani, but the in-tune drums really add a lot of badass swagger to the song. It's got all the atmosphere I've come to expect from Tobin, and at this point the record's going swimmingly. The next track is a bit of a slow jam meltdown, but it's all good. It's got a nice groove (almost reminiscent of Supermodified's 'Chocolate Lovely'), so I'm still with it.

So far so good.

Then comes 'Kitchen Sink' and the beginning of the end. Oh my God, congratulations on discovering....microphones. This record is aptly, literally and uninspiringly named, as Tobin has been moving more and more toward live instrumentation and "found sounds" recently. For those who don't know, a foley room is a room in which sound engineers record sound effects for films and the like. Tobin lives up to his reputation as a prolific weed-smoker here; I'll honestly say that 'Kitchen Sink' is probably pretty rad when you're high. But when you're sober (or even merely drunk) it's just an uncompelling show-off session where he tries to forge a song with non-conventional sound effects and fails. I can't skip this audio masturbation session fast enough.

The next track, 'Horsefish', is a nice and relaxing atmospheric drum-free interlude, but it's immediately followed by 'Foley Room', which is basically 'Kitchen Sink' on steroids and no more enjoyable.

Thank God that he's done with the really out-there stuff, as the rest of the album is comprised of enjoyable but uninspiring songs up until the very last track, 'At The End Of The Day'. Clocking in at only 3:12, it feels like a much longer song (in a good way). It has all the grand epic feel that Tobin's capable of, and it closes the record in fine style. It's a nice endcap to an ambitious but ultimately flawed effort.

Let me say this: I predict that Amon Tobin's next album is going to be The One.

He's gotten his "OH MY GOD I DISCOVERED MICROPHONES" stage out of the way, and now that he's powered through an inconsistent but promising record he's ready for perfection. I feel like his next effort is going to be much more measured. There's nothing wrong with using interesting sounds and live instrumentation, but it's like he was bipolar on this one, throwing most of the "found sounds" onto two tracks and leaving the rest of the songs standard and old-school. Now that mics are just one piece of his impressive repertoire, I bet that his next one is going to be his masterpiece, the one that brings it all together and executes with delicacy what he tried to do somewhat clumsily here.

Rating: 3/5

Buy It!

Do Make Say Think - You, You're A History In Rust

Being an elitist music snob, I was able to snag a leak of Do Make Say Think's 2007 album You, You're A History In Rust back last year. It's been sitting in my "new music" shuffle mix for over a month now, and every time a song from it comes up I perk up and think to myself, "Damn, that's good."

It should come as no surprise. In 2000 DMST released what I think is one of the best post-rock albums ever created; in fact, the vinyl version of Goodbye Enemy Airship The Landlord Is Dead is hanging on the wall behind me right now. It's one of only two albums that I've ever framed, if that says anything.

But once again, I digress.

This album is brilliant. In many ways it's really the culmination of what they've been building toward up until this point. While Goodbye Enemy Airship was brilliant, it was also a bit of a downer. Their next two records were much more upbeat, but they each lacked the same immediacy as Airship. & Yet & Yet felt like a misstep to me and still does (I don't really think any of the songs are memorable), and while Winter Hymn Country Hymn Secret Hymn opened and closed with two of my favorite DMST songs ever (the absolutely timeless 'Fredericia' and 'Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!'), the middle of the album was entirely forgettable.

Not so with Rust. Do Make's latest album is the total package, all things considered. It has the upbeat, everything's-gonna-be-okay tone of their last few releases, yet it retains the loose performance and live tone of their earlier work. This feels like a group of happy people playing the music of their hearts one night at a friend's 200-year-old creaking wooden house. This record is just. Freaking. Good. It's got a consistency they haven't had since Airship, as every single song is a winner. You could put this album on at any occasion and be happy with your choice.

The only thing I can knock it for is that DMST's trademark production does detract from one of the album's best songs, the energetic 'The Universe!'. I saw them perform this song live a few months back, and it was absolutely monstrous (in the good way). They set it up as a dynamite closer and delivered on everything they'd promised, but on the album it just doesn't have the same punch. It feels like they're just going through the motions, which no doubt they aren't, but you can't change what's laid down on tape.

Anyway, that's basically my only complaint. This is a ridiculously good album. It makes me happy just listening to it and writing about it. God bless these people for creating it.

Rating: 4.5/5 Stars

Buy It!

2006 - All Together Now!

Ever since 2001 I've finished the year by making a mix CD containing all of my favorite songs from that year. While most of the music on these mixes was released the same year as the mix, I've never been shy about putting on bands from previous years that I'd just gotten into; my 2002 rock mix (one of my favorite mixes ever) had some songs by bands that had broken up half a decade prior. This year is no different, as about 1/6 of the songs were released before 2006.

But I digress....

....here's my 2006 mix!

For the first year ever I've completely skipped the CD stage and have done it all in mp3, though 1) all but one of the songs were personally ripped by me from CDs that I own 2) I trimmed and edited the tracks to get the transitions nice (especially if you have a gapless mp3 program) and 3) I encoded the mp3's at a ridiculously-slow-to-process uber-HQ 320 kbps setting.

Another departure for this year's mix is putting all of the genres together in one tracklist. In past years I'd do different CDs for different genres, but this year I decided to put it all together (hence the name of the mix). I did that for a few reasons. For one, when listening to big playlists on shuffle I noticed that it's entirely possible to transition in a cool way between screamy hardcore and, say, Daedelus.

Secondly, and even more pretentiously, I got sick of worrying about genre lines. I give out my mixes to my friends each year, and on a certain level I split out the metal from the rest to "protect" their tender sensibilities. But this year was quite a watershed for good heavy music, as bands like Mastodon, Converge and Intronaut released staggeringly good albums that a ton of my previously metal-hating friends really enjoy; I was glad to see so many converts embrace the glory of "the screamy screamy," as I call it from time to time.

Thus, I figured I'd take on the challenge of doing a mix that contains everything from face-melting hardcore to progressive hip-hop to IDM to almost-ambient. I'm really happy with how it all turned out, despite the hair I pulled out trying to wrestle the track listing and whittle the number down, and I hope you'll enjoy it too.

Download It!

Track Listing:

1. Mogwai - Glasgow Mega-Snake
2. Mastodon - The Wolf Is Loose
3. These Arms Are Snakes - Horse Girl
4. Intronaut - Gleamer
5. Daedelus - Our Last Stand
6. Converge - Versus
7. Buck 65 - Le 65isme
8. Intronaut - Fragments Of Character
9. Cyne - Running Water
10. Mastodon - Circle Of Cysquatch
11. Beck - We Dance Alone
12. Gnarls Barkley - Transformer
13. The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza - Daddy's Coming Up
14. Mastodon - Capillarian Crest
15. Loka - Beginningless
16. Jega - Geometry
17. Converge - Bare My Teeth
18. mewithoutYou - Wolf Am I! (And Shadow)
19. Intronaut - Sores Will Weep
20. Deftones - Rapture
21. zero dB - Conga Madness
22. Mastodon - Blood And Thunder
23. The Roots - Take It There
24. Norma Jean - A Grand Scene For A Color Film
25. Buck 65 - Blood Of A Young Wolf
26. Bonobo - If You Stayed Over
27. Converge - No Heroes
28. Mastodon - Island
29. DJ Krush - Duality (2006K Mix)
30. Intronaut - Fault Lines
31. Thom Yorke - Black Swan
32. Beck - New Round
33. Helios - Paper Tiger
34. DJ Krush - Day's End (After-Dusk Mix)
35. Converge - Grim Heart / Black Rose

Rating: 5/5 Stars

Dexter - Season One

I remember reading about Dexter before it aired and being mildly interested; a show about a forensics expert who kills other serial killers by night sounded like it had promise. I was also intrigued by the show's star, Michael C. Hall. As a fan of HBO's fantastic series Six Feet Under, I was really interested to see how much range Hall had. As it turns out, he's got a lot.

Dexter is the first Showtime original series I've ever watched, and after watching series after magical series on HBO I consider being "HBO quality" the yardstick by which all shows are judged. After watching the entire first season, I've got to say that Dexter is HBO quality in every way; the acting is top-notch, the production values are high and the writing is great. Heck, four of the actors happen to be from Oz, another HBO show that I love, and to top it all off Dexter even has an extremely clever credit sequence accompanied by a quirky and memorable theme song.

The main plot arc of the first season revolves around a serial killer that is striking Miami and baffling its police squad, and by the end of the pilot the killer makes a personal connection with Dexter. I won't say more than that, though my one remaining fear for the show is that each subsequent season will follow a "serial killer of the season" formula and get stale. By the end of season one, however, the characters and relationships have unbelievable depth, so I think there's plenty to work with going forward without relying on a new diabolical killer each season to keep things going.

Dexter himself was traumatized as a child and taken in by foster parents. Even at a young age he found himself devoid of normal human emotion, a bad trait to have given that he also discovered in himself a compulsive desire to kill. By the time of the show's current-day narrative Dexter has trained himself only to kill those who deserve it (murderers who got off on technicalities, immigrant slave traders, serial rapists), which he sees as a righteous application of his unique "talents." He's still emotionless, though, which leads him to fake his way through his relationships and social obligations (think Patrick Bateman in American Psycho); every now and then you'll even hear his inner monologue, when he says things like, "everyone else is smiling, so I should laugh and pretend I'm having a good time." He does a pretty good job of faking things, too, as only a few people detect the slightest hint that something is wrong under the surface. This aspect of the show alone offers a lot of interesting things to watch.

The depth of the show, however, comes not only from Dexter's complex character but also from the people surrounding him: his loving, earnest and somewhat dopey detective sister, his aggressive and overbearing police superiors, and his equally damaged girlfriend. Since he has no sex drive whatsoever he defines his relationship with his girlfriend as the perfect relationship; she's the victim of repeated rape and abuse and is horrified of ever opening up emotionally or sexually again. They both fake their way through what they see as a "normal" relationship and are happy to do it. Things get interesting, of course, when Dexter's pitch-perfect nice-guy act begins to put his girlfriend back into her comfort zone, which ironically moves Dexter out of his. Brilliant.

The details of Dexter's job as a blood spatter expert are fascinating, especially when we get a chance to see the reconstruction of a crime scene as he pieces together what took place. It's all the more interesting knowing that by night he's spilling blood himself. Meticulously careful, he kills without a trace and does enough research to be absolutely certain that he's killing someone who deserves it; to take an innocent life would be wrong.

It's the balancing of these elements that makes Dexter such a quality show, as does the fact that the characters go through changes and grow in different ways over the course of the first season. Shows begin to stagnate when the characters stop changing (I'm looking at you, Sopranos), and so far Dexter is doing an admirable job of putting well-realized characters into interesting situations and showing what happens. The beginning of season two will find the characters in new places with new dynamics and challenges, which is all you can ask of the establishing season of a series. I know I'll be there with my Showtime HD subscription, ready to see where Dexter goes next.

Rating: 4/5 Stars

Children of Men

Children of Men is one of the best films I've seen since....

I keep starting that sentence when I tell my friends about the movie but have yet to finish it because I can't remember the last time I left a theater feeling that affected. All of the friends I saw the film with were blown away as well, and I'm counting the days until the film is officially released in America (I was lucky enough to attend a special screening at the Alamo Drafthouse, the best movie theater on earth).

When I first saw the trailer for Children of Men I remember being immediately drawn in by the sense of utter despair in the future portrayed by the film, a world in which women have stopped giving birth and humanity is living out its final years before extinction. I'm a big fan of Clive Owen, and I was into the trailer right up until the point it switched gears and revealed that there was, in fact, one woman who could apparently still bear children. At that point I tuned out, cynically certain that the film was just another "gritty" Hollywood movie that lacked any sense of integrity or guts, where everything eventually worked out happily for all of our favorite household movie stars.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

I don't know where to start praising Children of Men. Every performance was fantastic, not only due to the brilliance of the actors but also due to the well-crafted, unique and memorable characters created by the film's team of writers. Alfonso Cuarón's direction was visceral and mind-blowing at times, with a few unbroken shots so long and enrapturing that I almost forgot to breathe. The art direction and set design of the film made it feel much more like a world than a linear narrative; I felt like I lived there with those desperate people. I was sucked in, experiencing the despair of the characters and identifying with their utter and complete lack of hope.

The story itself moved forward at blinding speed, kicking off from the first scene and never slowing down until the final frame. I won't go into spoilers, but let me say that the trailer takes you through about the first third of the film and doesn't give away half of what makes the movie so engrossing. It's killing me not to go into specifics, but this really is the kind of film you should go into with an open mind and no more foreknowledge than the trailer provides.

When I try to think of a single word to describe Children of Men, I can only come up with "powerful." It's a dark and bleak movie, but I wouldn't call it depressing. There are moments of tenderness and levity, but I wouldn't call it funny. It addresses ethnic tensions and the current climate of international conflict and unrest, but I wouldn't call it political. I keep coming back to thinking of it as simply powerful, nothing more and nothing less. You can't ignore it or tune it out; it's there and it will get under your skin. You'll think about its message and its ambiguities and its ability to hit you when and where you least expect.

This is a film that will stay with you.

Just go see it.

Rating: 5/5 Stars

Cormac McCarthy - The Road

I'd never read any of Cormac McCarthy's books before tackling The Road, but I decided to pick it up after seeing it mentioned in 3 or 4 different places as the newest and arguably best work of one of America's greatest living authors. I don't read a ton of high-quality literary fiction, to be frank. I generally read books for shameless entertainment, for edification, or to give in to my fair share of intellectual peer pressure. The premise of the book (a father and son's long trek across an apocalyptic wasteland) and the provocative title were enough to get me to order it from Amazon, though, and with great curiosity I dove into the work of a new writer.

The Road is a short book, clocking in at 241 pages; I read it cover to cover in one day while traveling. In addition to being short, however, the book also has an ultra-stark and minimalist writing style. McCarthy eschews quotation marks altogether and sometimes ditches the apostrophes in contractions as well, but those are merely formatting anti-flourishes; the more jarring and arresting characteristics of the writing are its utter simplicity and immediacy. To illustrate, here's a brief passage from the first chapter of the book:

With the first gray light he rose and left the boy sleeping and walked out to the road and squatted and studied the country to the south. Barren, silent, godless. He thought the month was October but he wasnt sure. He hadnt kept a calendar for years. They were moving south. There'd be no surviving another winter here.

The story itself is just as immediate as the writing style, which gives the entire book a distinct unity of effect. While the narrative brushes over a few uneventful days here and there, it's essentially the chronicle of a few weeks of a father and son's journey across the dead post-apocalyptic wasteland of an unknown country. There's very little in-depth description of....anything, really, but McCarthy is neither lazy nor unimaginative; he's just smart enough to trust his readers to fill in the blanks. The sparseness of the writing also underscores the sparseness of the nuclear wasteland in a very real way.

The source of the devastating apocalypse is discussed only briefly as "a long shear of light and then a series of low concussions" glimpsed through a window, and the backgrounds of the characters receive only slightly more coverage. Again, the lack of superfluous detail serves to highlight what's immediately important in the tragically small family's life: What are we eating today? Will we make it through this frigid night, unable to light a fire for fear of being spotted and attacked by someone who would kill us for a can of beans? Are bands of marauders following our tracks? Will the next person we meet on the road greet us kindly or try to murder and eat us?

The book uses nothing but a few carriage returns between scenes instead of breaking the events up into traditional chapters, which further lets the events blend into one long dirge on survival. The reader can almost hear the lone reverb-drenched twang of a single dying guitar. If this isn't the world that the music of Godspeed You Black Emperor describes then I don't know what is; the opening monologue from 'The Dead Flag Blues' would be right at home in The Road:

The car's on fire. And there's no driver at the wheel. And the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides. And a dark wind blows.

Cue lonely 6-string.

The bleakness of the setting and the situations in which the characters find themselves set the stage for a few bright moments, however, mainly through the stark contrast; after reading 30 pages about such a miserable, ash-covered world the reader feels a genuine swell of joy when even the smallest ray of light shines down on the father and his son. Not that they've actually seen the sun in years, mind you.

The father and son, whose names are never revealed, meet relatively few other humans in the course of their journey, but their interactions with the other near-extinct humans reveal volumes about them. The father's unconditional, unquestioning, unbreakable love for his son is made manifest time and again in the least uncertain terms possible, while his son's mixture of childlike innocence and heartbreaking weariness reveals all too much about the terrible state of the world around them. Ultimately this is a small story set in a huge, mean world, and by the time the duo reaches the end of their journey the reader is left as weary as the characters, a credit to McCarthy's writing and his ability to convey a great deal with a few words.

Rating: 4/5 Stars

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DJ Krush - Stepping Stones: The Self-Remixed Best (Soundscapes)

In the pantheon of great ideas, this one falls somewhere between Google and the wheel: Pick a selection of DJ Krush's best songs and have them remixed by....DJ Krush. How can you go wrong when that's your jumping-off point?

This album is as good as the concept sounds, though to be clear I'm only reviewing the second disc of this 2 CD set. The first CD is comprised of remixes of tracks that Krush did with rappers, and I've never been a fan of Krush's work with lyricists; having a rapper over some of the best, most textured downtempo beats in the business just seems like an unnecessary distraction. Whether that makes me a heretic or a purist is up for debate, but I'd like to believe that I'm the latter.

The selection of songs is skewed fairly heavily toward his later stuff (lots of representation from Jaku, Zen and Kakusei), but the selections from his early work are stellar, notably Meiso's 'Duality' (with a classic guest performance from a pre-Endtroducing DJ Shadow) and Strictly Turntablized's 'Kemuri'; I'd be hard-pressed to think of a better song off each album. I would have loved to have seen at least one track from Ki-Oku, but for all I know that collaborative album is tied up in a rights battle.

For an album with songs covering such a long time period it feels surprisingly cohesive. I've seen Krush live a few times, and this record seems to really capture his live sound. While the songs are mostly downtempo, the methodical pacing and dense atmospherics give the collection a very unified vibe. Surprisingly, one of the highlights of the album is a song almost entirely without drums, the ultra-mellow 'Day's End (After-Dusk Mix)'. Though it originally appeared on Zen, the track's off-kilter trumpet work could have easily been from Toshinori Kondo's performances on Ki-Oku.

'Drum' and 'Duck Chase (Double-Up Mix)' are the album's only truly up-tempo songs, and while they're okay they detract from the overall moody vibe of the record; at least they're next to each other in the track listing and thus only disrupt the flow once. 'Kemuri (Untouchable Mix)' is frankly a bit of a letdown, but then again the original is one of Krush's best songs ever, so maybe improving it is too lofty a goal even for the Zen master himself.

Aside from 'Day's End (After-Dusk Mix)', the album's other standout track is clearly 'Duality (2006K Mix)'. The original, like 'Kemuri', is one of Krush's most classic moments, though to be brutally honest the 2nd half of the song (created by DJ Shadow) blows Krush's half out of the water. Thus, you've gotta give credit to Krush for recognizing greatness and highlighting the 2nd half of the song in the remix, getting to it quickly and letting its original brilliance shine with some added texture that never strays too far from the original track's intent.

At the end of the day I'd recommend this album to any DJ Krush fan and to any fan of downtempo music in general, though that recommendation is honestly based on the highlights of the album, as some of the filler tracks are skippers. You can buy the Soundscapes CD by itself as an import, but it's actually cheaper just to get the 2 CD set and throw the first disc in the trash can.

3.75/5 Stars

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Converge - No Heroes

I have a lot of respect for this band. For the last 15 or so years they've been playing heavy music, and at this point I believe in everything they do. You can't play this kind of music and tear yourself apart on stage every night for that long and not love the hardcore lifestyle, and with No Heroes they reiterate why they're one of the most respected heavy bands out there.

The album takes a while to find its stride, mainly because it starts off with 5 songs that range from 0:58 to 1:43 long. The tracks are all great, but they're over almost before you get a chance to experience them. I would have appreciated at least one set of songs that were clearly meant to go together, like the 'Drop Out' / 'Hope Street' combo off the band's previous album You Fail Me, but when the title track kicks off in the 6 spot you know it's a full-on Converge album.

Despite the fact that the main riff could come from a mid-term project in a Metal Riffs 101 class, the unflinching intensity of the song, which bounces from chorus to bridge to verse to breakdown in a nonstop flurry, ultimately drives it home as a song worthy of the album's title. The next track, 'Plagues', serves as a sludgy meltdown after the craziness that preceded it. While it's a surprisingly effective opener live, the greatness of the following track basically turns it into a skipper; when you know that 'Grim Heart / Black Rose' is just around the corner there's no reason to wait through a 5-minute meltdown.

I'll say right now that 'Grim Heart / Black Rose' is one of the best songs Converge has ever written. The first half of the song is a slow, dark dirge sung by guest vocalist Jonah Jenkins. What?! Clean vocals on a Converge album? Yep, and it works. While I find the first portion of the song a little cookie cutter due to the lack of variation in the vocal line, the riff at 3:48 hits you like a sledgehammer in the chest, and the fact that the clean vocals continue instead of breaking into screams only highlights the power of the song. From here on there's no turning back. The song melts down into a minimalist mix of guitar and bass with just a touch of cymbals before the build of builds begins. While not quite on par with the greatest of GYBE!'s climaxes, the final third of 'Grim Heart / Black Rose' is pure post-rock. And it's unreal. It's hard to believe that the same band that started the album with 5 tracks shorter than a commercial break has the patience to let a song grow to a boil like this, but they do. And when the bottom finally drops out the closing explosion is ridiculously brutal. I get excited just typing about it.

The next two tracks, 'Orphaned' and 'Lonewolves', are standard Converge songs, which is fine since a filler track on a Converge album would be the crowning achievement of some wannabe band's career. Once those two are out of the way, 'Versus' comes out of the gate with burning intensity and never lets up. Even the measure-ending triplets are on fire, and the time-cycling chorus riff at 0:49 incorporates a high note that I can only describe as crazy. It's not any sort of virtuoso performance, it's just a super-interesting choice that somehow makes the high/low metal riff thing sound fresh again. Every time I hear that note I wince in pleasure and tilt my head, trying to get inside the note. It's a good thing they did something interesting with 'Versus', because the next song is a disappointment.

Along with 'Plagues', I feel like 'Trophy Scars' is the album's only other misstep. It starts off well enough, but as soon as it devolves into the way-too-emo palm-muted all-out whining I have to skip to the next track. The lyrics are just too trite. Later parts of the song are quite good, but the constant returns to the seemingly never-ending emo-whining are just too much to overcome. It's just not good.

Luckily the song is followed by 'Bare My Teeth', which reminds me of a longer version of 'Hope Street' from You Fail Me. It's got a great melodic hardcore opening riff and a brutal stop/start bridge, but it's also longer than a minute long and is thus a nice gem found toward the end of the record. 'To The Lions' is a perfectly competent closer (and it gets extra points for the gratuitous use of the pick slide), but on some level the entire second half of the album feels like the afterglow of 'Grim Heart / Black Rose'. On previous albums, 'To The Lions' would have been a standout, but on No Heroes it's merely a very good song, which is really just a credit to how amazing the high points of the album are. By the time the song fades out with what can only be described as a guitar lead edging suspiciously close to guitar solo territory (I think of it as a pseudo-solo) you feel chewed up and spit out. But in a good way.

Production-wise, this is the best-sounding album that the band's guitarist, Kurt Ballou, has ever turned out. He's produced and engineered numerous albums at his own GodCity Studios, but this is the first time that he's taken the reigns on a Converge album. Maybe that's what it took to finally nail the sound that showed promise on Jane Doe but sounded a little too thin and noisy on that outing. You Fail Me got closer to the signature Converge sound, but Ballou finally nailed it on No Heroes. Every element of the music is well-represented, and this is hands-down the best that Ben Koller's drums have ever sounded; the bass drum finally sounds thundering but tight, and the snare and cymbals have all sorts of crispness. The guitars and Nate Newton's bass of course sound wonderfully dirty, and the vocals are as raspy and brutal as always. Put together, the distortion and blending of the elements makes the entire band sound like one huge angry instrument, not a collection of 4 guys each doing their own thing. It's amazing.

Lyrically there's not much to say. Jacob Bannon has apparently had some unfortunate experiences with women, and the track names alone should be enough of a clue that Converge is still singing about pain, failure and betrayal. The album art is also classic Converge; Bannon went nuts with the muted colors, dark imagery and Photoshop filters. It works, but it seems a little too well-composed when compared to the group's ultra-raw sound.

All in all this is a fantastic, powerful album, and if it weren't for a few throwaway songs I would give it 5 stars in a heartbeat, since the best songs on the album are life-changers. The centerpiece songs really give the album a heart that I've never experienced this fully on a Converge record; it doesn't just feel like brutality for the sake of it, which is what helps this album transcend into the land of the classics.

4.5/5 Stars

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