Red, red wine

Hands and Knees - Red Hot Minnow
pRIMORDIAL sOUNDS #5

Hands and Knees' Red Hot Minnow leaves me with the same feeling I get after watching my children spend 10 hours climbing on furniture, cartwheeling down stairs, doing somersaults on the ceiling, swan-diving off top bunks, and perfecting the skill of sprinting full throttle while screaming at top volume: I am simultaneously jealous of and fatigued by their inexhaustible energy.

Hands and Knees play fast and loose, like on "Cemetery" and "Cool," but even when they're not playing fast and loose, they still manage to exude a vitality that enters the room with you and lifts you up by the armpits and twirls you around. "Pinwheel" features this exuberant, sloppy melody; if it played for an eternity it wouldn't be long enough. "Gracie" has bleating trumpet and foot-stomping, hand-clapping rhythms. "Dreamt" is representative of Hand and Knees' rather uncomplicated approach to their craft: well-constructed songs done with a lo-fi recording approach.

I began to imagine the album's recording process and how much of a fecking blast it must have been to undertake. Like, a bottle of red wine was passed around and band members drank straight from the bottle, crimson spots dotting their chins. Except for that one individual (probably the bassist; bassists are pointy-headed piss faucets) who wanted to pour the red wine into a cup; he was ultimately rewarded for his civility by having the wine slosh all over his shirt, a mishap that was a source of much laughter to those around him. Then the bottle went empty and during a song when a particular band member wasn't needed (again, probably the bassist), that person was ordered to walk the nine blocks to the liquor store to fetch more red wine. Which they did, quite contently.

"I can't concentrate"

Microflvrscnce - I
Patient Sounds #31

Listening to Microflvrscnce's I in the dark—an act that compels me to listen with more than the usual attentiveness, as well as bury my hands in crevices I wouldn't dare explore under the harsh eye of artificial light—I was reminded of an essay by Lauren Slater titled "Black Swans." Slater details her conflict with a severe case of obsessive-compulsive disorder and how her doctor's treatment plan includes desensitizing her to obsessive thoughts (in Slater's case, "I can't concentrate") through what is essentially tape loops. Slater's doctor instructs her to record herself saying "I can't concentrate I can't concentrate I can't concentrate" and then listen to those words on a Walkman for two hours a day. Eventually, she will become so accustomed to the interminable thoughts inking up the purity of consciousness that their potency will be diminished. Or her doctor theorizes. Slater eventually increases the tape loop dosage (increased volumes, four hours of listening), but the overall effect is not a cure for her disease, but instead, this (a physical reaction I experience after listening to I):

My sheets were damp from sweat ... Shadows whirled around. Planets sent down their lights, laying them across the blue floor. Blue. Silver. Space. I can't concentrate.

Microflvrscnce is Poland's Rob Skrzynski and America's Ross Devlin. Indulge in this; your body will react similarly.

Wonderfully tossed together

Pride of Lowell - Pride of Lowell
Dirty Pillows

Pride of Lowell is not in the song business—they're in the mindfuck business. Got that? The minimalist duo of Patrick Breiner (tenor saxophone, clarinet) and Max Goldman (drums) churn out maximum chaos. Each instrument complements and combats the other; horns woo drums, drums fuck horns, horns and drums squabble, drums and horns make up. I want to say the pair channel the spirit of James Chance or maybe Ornette Coleman, except it's not really channeling. It's more like strangling.

Pride of Lowell's punk-jazz improvisations sound wonderfully tossed together. Like a standard, linear song was written and then the individual notes were cut from the sheet music and assembled in random sequences and pasted to a piece of paper, so that the sheet music took on the appearance of a ransom note constructed from snipped-out magazine letters.

At one point, Breiner's tenor sax made a deep, flatulence-like sound that was akin to the air being slowly let out of the universe and I thought, "If this is it, if this is the end, I will expire content."

Safe for couples and coupling

Nathan Ventura - Love Songs
Self-released

Nathan Ventura was exceedingly impressed with our recent vivisections of his work (or: replace "exceedingly" with "dreadfully" and "impressed" with "embarrassed"), so much so he mailed us another cassette.

Sonically, Love Songs isn't an album one would play in front of their better half, not even on an evening where one would like to evoke the phrase "Not tonight—I have a headache," but can't because it has worn so thin it's gauzy. The music is antagonistic and threatening and sharp around the edges. The sounds in "Mexican Sunrise" are akin to one of the generic ring tones that are included on your smart phone—and the ring tone is played at the phone's maximum volume. "I'm a Little Spider" reminds me of the wet groans an empty stomach makes. And Ventura's voice, as always, sounds like it's coming from the behind a thick, locked door in an asylum.

But the lyrics! Those are indeed safe for couples and coupling. From "Cursive Line of Cocaine": "The only boy I ever loved left me for Hollywood / He used to write and blow my name in cursive lines of cocaine." From the previously mentioned "I'm a Little Spider": "I'm a little spider / I'm inside her." And from "I am the Dingleberry": "The universe is laughing at my sorrow / I am a dingleberry on the asshole of time." Because ... Well, nothing gets blood quicker to the loins than a metaphor involving fecal matter pasted onto body hair.

(Also, I'm really digging the cover art, which depicts two hugging individuals. One is so enthusiastic about the hug he has pulled the other completely off the ground. That kind of huge is great; you only get so many of those hugs during your lifetime.)

*The sound of eyes glazing over*

Socratic - Socratic
Antique Records

My two oldest play the saxophone (tenor and alto), so naturally I've saturated their lives with jazz. But what I anticipated to be an exercise in hipster dad/hipster kid bonding soon turned into a lesson in how quickly children can become comfortable with tuning out their parents.

Me: "Did you listen to that Coleman Hawkins album I put on your iPod?"

Them: *The sound of eyes glazing over*

So I spun them Socratic's "Charlie Parker (Music Will Save His Soul)," so they could better appreciate how jazz holds sway over the masses, but also because I didn't want them to think I'm daft, that I'm the only individual in the world who thinks jazz is fucking boss. (Well, they already think I'm daft; I mean daft when it comes to my taste in music.)

The New Jersey power pop trio's ode to Parker is infectious, referential, celebratory—it makes you as giddy as a Parker solo on that ole Grafton plastic saxophone of his.

Turning on a dime

Art Decade - Western Sunrise
Antique Records

There are instances where the universe turns on a dime: when a stopped heart starts beating once more; when an empty glass is filled to its brim; when averted eyes make contact; when silence gives way to song.

But what about those moments when the universe is more cynical? Like when a light bulb burns out or when a tire blows on the expressway or when molten lead inexplicably falls into your throat as you look up at a burning lighthouse?

I pondered all this while listening to Art Decade's Western Sunrise. Because the Boston group's brand of progressive rock is teeming with soaring vocals and emotionally charged choruses, and orchestration that feels like soft breezes on bare arms, and further orchestration that reminds you of the thrilling, anticipatory feeling you get when descending in an airplane, and guitar riffs that have you strumming the air, and recurring shifts in tempo and tone that leave you dazed and giddy and needing to put a steadying hand on a piece of furniture—and then the song "A Lie" concludes with "As usual / nothing's perfect / as usual / no one's there / as fearless as I try to be / I know that no one cares," and this turned-on-a-dime moment feels like being sneaked up on and jabbed in the ribs with a bony index finger.