scapegrace

die

2011-10-27T23:16:00.000-07:00

Nothing really gets me more interested in music than listening to musicians talk about music. And nothing wakes me up from being down in the dumps than music.

I'd abandon words, and writing, I'd abandon it all if I could simply say, "I'm having a hard time," and have that mean something to anyone. Because I lay my words down like bridges but I'm the only person crossing them.

In my dreams, all my fathers forsake me. It leaves clots in my veins and a pounding in my head.

It's the same winter coat, with the same dead leaves and the same cloying grey. If, for half a moment, I can walk on a stretch of sidewalk soaked in the sun and imitate Christopher Owens' walk while singing "Honey Bunny", if I can listen to "Surf Solar" by Fuck Buttons on repeat with the volume turned up, it feels remotely like conversation.

In the end, the people I remember most in the last year aren't the ones that I've told, "I'm having a hard time". It's the Noah Lennoxes, the Avey Tares, the Owen Palletts, the Bradford Coxes, the Christopher Owenses and Peter Silbermans of the world that tuck me into bed at night and whisper, "Sometimes it's like that."

some announcements, i guess

2011-10-10T12:41:00.000-07:00

I've been considering things over, and I've come to the decision that I will be revising this blog. Some things that will noticeably be missing will be some of the earlier posts (particularly the ones I wrote when I was a hyper high school kid).

But the big news: I'll be redoing my 365 reviews! I may not necessarily review them all, or even do it within a time limit (because let's face it, I actually have a life now), but I feel like a return to music will be a good idea.

In particular, you should look forward to a less cluttered website, lots of links to free music, and just as much "personal" pieces whenever they come up. I hope also to create some pages of "Best of" lists, spanning a few other decades.

Call it an early new year's resolution to return to writing. I hope everyone is just as excited as I am.

new music soon

2011-10-10T08:08:00.000-07:00

So I know that I've gained a certain number of followers primarily because of my music reviews, which I refrained from this year, due in large part to the fact that I haven't listened to much this year. (I think this is also why I have had so few posts this year, and why my writing has suffered.)

But, as is tradition, I will start cramming in listening to all the new albums this year in order to put together a very wordy, very lengthy, Best Albums of 2011. HOORRAAAaaayyyy?!!??!

this is starting to fuck with my head (you can count on me)

2011-10-05T19:55:00.000-07:00

At 21 it seems a little irresponsible to have already lost two fathers.

As if I might lift up the couch cushions and find him there, arms wrapped around my mother, spreading peanut butter on a saltine still.

You'll have to excuse the language, because I was 6 when I started saying "bastard" and I'd ride in my father's truck and ask the meaning of every curse word I could think of as he drove me to school.

There are certain things that I can't believe are truly over. I still feel like you'll be there, as you always were. Because that's what fathers do, right?

I guess I wouldn't know.

cuckoo, cuckoo

2011-10-01T17:24:00.000-07:00

If I think about the last few years before the end of the world and can press my lips in a straight line, it feels remotely like staying.

I used to try and clean the driveway with a toothbrush, until the bristles wore down and the skin on my knuckles rubbed off on the pavement. You used to smile as you walked by.

If I sit with my head against the window of the bus and I remember you swinging me across the surface of the water, it feels exactly like we lost you.

I don't want to remember you like I'm trying to prove you were ever here.

Was there ever a good way to lose a father?

i wasn't made for anyone

2011-09-25T23:21:00.000-07:00

I wasn't made for you, like the smiling doll with a set of pearls around her neck like a dog collar. A million little dollhouses, I pass them every night. I used to call my heart a home but that suburban dream was washed down the sink, along with the frog that she blended and every other problem we couldn't solve.

I want you to understand things. I've been standing with the suitcases packed since I was six but I've stayed because if one of us wasn't committed we would never have made it this far.

For your birthday I painted my favorite picture of the two of you, but my hands were shaky and I was tired and soon enough I mispainted, your lips transformed from a carelessly captured smile to a red smudge. I wanted to start over, to get it right, but I cut you apart with my own hands.

When I look closely enough, I can see the cracks now. If we stand far enough away, everything looks alright.

I wasn't made for anyone. I was made to stand far enough away until everything looks alright.

as young as yesterday

2011-09-21T01:40:00.000-07:00

When I was a child I used to have a nasty habit of scratching myself. My arms and legs were covered in scabs, which I'd pick off to create even bigger scabs. Or, if I'd picked them all already, I'd scratch myself until I bled.

There was never any rhyme or reason to it; I did it because I needed to keep my fingers busy. Soon enough, my body was covered in a hundred scars, little circles, like someone had put a polka dot pattern on my skin.

It took me years to quit the habit, to turn the pages of a book rather than pick myself to pieces. It took even longer for the scars to fade.

Sometimes, at night, busy fingers scratch skin, until I wake up with new scars. Maybe I've just always wanted to tear myself apart.

I did it, I guess

2011-09-11T20:43:00.000-07:00

Congratulations are in order, but unfortunately there aren't many people joining in the celebrations. I was reinstated at the University of Washington! It's a happy day, and a testament to how hard I worked this year and how much it sucked, but because I've been keeping most of that to myself, news of my return to school has had a fairly lukewarm reception.

Anyways, I'm happy for myself. And since I need to share this with somebody, I thought I'd share it with everyone that's been with me this whole long way, from being in college to being kicked to coming back. Thanks guys!

never tear us apart

2011-09-02T10:48:00.000-07:00

If I could write my own ending to this story, I wouldn't be so damaged. We'd probably be talking, instead of the awkward silence between us that only I seem to notice.

The fact is, mistakes were made. Things were done that can't be undone. But my soul is weak, and things worth having require standing up for, and lord knows I don't have solid knees.

When you hold me it's the only time I can feel my old heart beating. More than anything I'd want to tell you that I've only felt alive when you run your fingers across my skin. But I've been spending my time suppressing screams, I've been living with ghosts and getting strangled every night.

I want to have something to offer you, but I don't have anything to offer myself.

magnolia

2011-09-01T00:02:00.000-07:00

The word comes heavily, sitting in the back of my throat like a thick syrup.

Tonight I tried to bury you again. I washed you down the sink, I tucked you in a page of a book I never read, I clawed your throat of soil and gravel. Out, damned spot.

When I speak your name, the sound catches and I can feel all the times I drew you near, only to hear you whisper "Bitch" behind my back. Where I might have had gentle words, it takes all I can do to keep from shutting down completely.

Memories of you remind me just how much I don't want to be in love.

tell me what's the difference if i go back to normal again?

2011-08-10T00:03:00.000-07:00

Things might be different in a house with a patio, sliding glass doors and vases.

Maybe if my parents held hands when I was little I'd know the way you and I could fit together. Instead I saw the suitcases packed every night, I recited the old dark stories, I remembered to run away.

I'd like nothing more than to hear you ask me to stay. I only wish I had an idea how.

or something like it

2011-07-23T01:16:00.000-07:00

So I am winding up my clock, backwards. This time, M. will be jumping backwards, up onto the bus, unsaying my name. The blood will be flowing into wounds, the pills will be put back in the bottles. I will go through shrink spurts, the hair will un-grow from my skin. And I will wake up, happy and free and clean. All the things I ever did wrong, or ever will do, will fall up into the sky, they will clear up the stormy clouds in my life, they will un-evaporate and add their weight to the ocean. My exhales will be inhales, my rights will be lefts, my laughing and crying will be the same thing.

She says this is progress, we should keep the forward momentum. I can't tell if I'm just a really good liar or if this is real. This is happiness, or something like it.

My happiness is a firework. The synapses ignite, then go dark.

If this is happiness, I'd rather have something like it.

master of none

2011-07-16T01:16:00.000-07:00

When I started writing in late 2009, I felt myself on the edge of something sinister. Writing became one of the few lifelines left to me; in the years that followed, I worked through complex emotions that I otherwise had no venue for exploring.

I've been considerably more lax towards posting, as my sanity does not depend so heavily on it. Sometimes, like remembering a kiss, I can feel myself begin to disengage in that old familiar way, but it's more difficult to tempt me back into closed and stifled rooms.

Though I'll forever be hesitant to say that I have healed from all that has happened in just the last three to four years, I have to say that for the first time in my life, things are truly looking up. It might have taken me over a year to shake the sound of the paramedics on the other side of the phone, the skin of my eyelids may forever be purple-tinted from the day she gave me a black eye and told me to pack my things. I may still be holding myself and sobbing in the basement of the library, or I may be slamming my head against the floor, screaming to get out. But these are only memories that have little to do with my present.

As always, I will not take down my website. It's important to work through whatever you may be facing, whether it is severe depression or anxiety disorders, whether it is just the hassle of growing up or growing apart. I look forward to starting a new chapter, and we will see whether or not that includes writing.

Sometimes I'm afraid I'll only write when I'm unhappy.

goldfish

2011-07-10T10:01:00.000-07:00

I walk past the alley and glimpse the trash spilled across the pavement, the space between the walls clouded with fat flies. You'd never see this in Bellevue.

My feet stay rooted to the ground but my body is pulled forward, my mom walking steadily towards the stall with the goldfish. The biker leans forward and pushes right past us, where the throng of people mill about the street fair. The goldfish stall is empty, having sold out in the small space of time it took us to buy groceries.

There are drums and shouting coming from the park, where we know the lion dancers must be. Three streets away, the homeless wave at commuters.

Chinatown is cramped, dirty, and dangerous. Most days you do not see small children, you rarely see Asians. I watch my mother order at Dim Sum King; surrounded by Asians, she is the only one that doesn't order in English.

The truth is, for all the pigeon shit, trash and piss and on the sidewalks, I love Chinatown, as much as I love Bellevue. Where Bellevue is clean and safe, Chinatown is vibrant, and disgusting. People look at everyone else as the outsider, whether they are Asian or otherwise, and no one wants to talk to each other here. My mother smiles through it all, this Chinatown harmless compared to the Hong Kong she grew up in. Even the small building where ex-Chinese gang members still meet doesn't scare her; she plucks a rose from the side of the building and hands it to my sister, who has been eying them. The grocers know her well, and smile when she walks towards them. This is where the loud volume of her voice is welcome and comfortable, settling just above the hubbub of other voices. She jokes, and people ask about her daughters and her husband and everyone laughs.

I watch the man in the blue suit carry his sushi back to his office, I watch the homeless woman living under a hedge be uncovered by a child looking for pennies. I watch the building we used to own get torn down to make way for new apartments, I watch the old apartment I grew up in paint the words "Modern" on the side it, the sparrows that somehow find their way inside the groceries.

We snap some photos at the street fair before heading back towards our car. I can feel the dirt on the bottom of my shoes and I lean back, watching the homeless wave.

the universe is going to catch you

2011-06-11T21:36:00.000-07:00

It's a very simple truth but it is hard to accept. The universe is going to catch you.

We tried once to do trust falls in the kitchen, but I could only think of the linoleum and I wouldn't let you catch me. You yelled at me, I am going to catch you, but I started to cry and you said that we could play something else.

I have been thinking lately about friends that I haven't seen in a while and friends that won't see me anymore, the ones I miss that don't miss me. As much as I'd like to make this about me, that isn't always the point.

You can blame yourself for building walls and drawing lines, for all the times you didn't answer the phones compared to all the times that you did. But in the end, you aren't the only person in the conversation. It's as much your choice as it is theirs, too.

There are reasons why I'd like to take the blame. I think to myself, if this is your fault, you can still fix it. If I can take all the blame, I'll have all the responsibility, and things that I don't like about my life will change if I can only change myself.

But changing yourself will only take you so far. You can still find yourself walking down a street in the University District crying by yourself when all of your plans fall through.

In the end, it isn't about how much people can like you, because as Facebook has demonstrated, liking something is simply not being committed enough to get to somewhere real. It isn't about changing yourself to be the type of person that appeals to others. It's about accepting that the universe is going to catch you, about leaving space for love to come into your life, about room for forgiveness and second chances. It's about doing trust falls in the kitchen when someone tells you they love you.

out of step

2011-06-03T18:36:00.000-07:00

Things aren't ending exactly as I'd hope they would, but I'm getting more used to the disappointment.

As people may have read in the very few posts I have written since this year has started, I am struggling to "get better". I can't write anything without saying that phrase because I can't go a single moment without asking myself if I am still getting better. The answer isn't always no, but it isn't yes as often as I would like.

I realize that I am still a long ways away from being someone that is self sufficient. If given a chance, I would very likely spend all of my money on dark chocolate and secondhand books, which is a sign that I am still struggling to function normally. Every once in a while I just want to stop and stay at home, like I used to.

But it's been a year between then and now. When I couldn't leave the house and when I could. The difference is huge, and it isn't lost on me.

There are still mistakes that I have made, small missteps that have yet to be corrected. But there is a lot more to my life than before. A whole year has passed, something I am not sure I expected to see. I have yet to forgive myself the small mistakes, I have yet to lose that feeling that I'm already at the end and that I won't see anymore, I have yet to "get better".

In any case, I am quitting my job as soon as I am nearly out of debt, and switching from Cookies by Design to Specialty's. I will be volunteering, I won't be in school until fall. My life is opening up, not shutting down.

abner jay

2011-05-22T02:03:00.000-07:00

The gestures are empty; I can't feel anything but anger. I can't let this go, afraid that if the anger is gone I won't feel anything anymore. My life demands more urgency.

I can't yet understand how you can be here one day, and then gone. I miss the way you used to make me hate my insides. I continue to hate myself, but I'm standing alone anyways. Nothing will bring you back.

I want to go back to park benches. I want leaves in my pocket, I want botanical gardens and unreality. I want cold winter days and music. I want to go back to feeling like someone knows me, I want to go back to feeling like I know myself. I miss my friends, the ones that hurt me and the ones that didn't.

Day to day, if I am lucky, I work myself so hard that I distract myself from all this. And then you are sitting in a car in the parking lot of Home Depot when it hits you all at once and you beat your head and sob. I tell myself that I am getting better, but my therapist turns to me and says "Challenge yourself" because I am obviously not.

it's never been like that, it's never been like that

2011-04-29T00:27:00.000-07:00

Not my idea of God, but God. Not my idea of H., but H. Yes, and also not my idea of my neighbor, but my neighbor. For don't we often make this mistake as regards people who are still alive — who are with us in the same room? Talking and acting not to the man himself but to the picture — almost the precis — we've made of him in our own minds? And he has to depart from it pretty widely before we even notice the fact. In real life — that's one way it differs from novels — his words and acts are, if we observe closely, hardly ever quite "in character", that is, in what we call his character. There's always a card in his hand that we didn't know about...My reason for assuming that I do this to other people is the fact that so often I find them obviously doing it to me. We all think we've got one another taped. — A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis

Mamihlapinatapai

2011-04-29T00:02:00.000-07:00

"Mamihlapinatapai: A look shared by two people, each wishing that the other would initiate something that they both desire but which neither wants to begin."

I don't know how to cross that border. I wouldn't want to, either.

You say "Hi" loud enough to be heard over the headphones I'm always wearing whenever I walk in. I never say anything back, barely capable of twisting my facial features into something as close to a smile as I can manage. I turn into the bookshelves, hoping that a wall of titles can save me from making eye contact.

The whole thing plays out before it even starts. It happens in that space between heartbeats when I turn the corner, trying to rush out, and you are right there. "When I bump you an accident's a truth gate", Tare sings, and I back away, afraid to hear the truth.

Last time, you and I both turned away. I don't know if it was just you, or if it was mostly me (I always assume that it is), but I tug bitterly at books I want, hiding them all over the store and then walking away. Why start something you can't finish, I tell myself as I push open the door.

why can't you just tell the truth?

2011-04-28T23:45:00.000-07:00

I reach for your hand but let it go in the same instant. Everything is wrong here.

In my mind, you never look me in the eye, always down and to the side. It used to be because you were shy, afraid of not impressing me. Eventually it was because we just weren't capable of seeing each other as we were, so afraid to look over and discover that the person next to us was only human, as that would take away our excuse to hold the other person responsible for happiness.

Things haven't changed in a year, they won't change any time soon. Things don't always get better, you tell me. You don't deserve to have anything better, you add.

I might miss my friend, but I don't miss this. I don't miss how you tried to pass the cruel things you'd say off as all just "a joke", as if I weren't smart enough to tell the difference between humor and cruelty. I don't miss the way you took everything I said and turned it against me, I don't miss feeling responsible for you.

I don't miss you. And it hurts the most that you never gave me anything to miss, but I still feel as if it's my fault.

You scream that I'm a liar, but why can't you just tell the truth?

i don't want to be free

2011-04-25T00:20:00.000-07:00

I like arm's length. At arm's length, there is no disappointment. At arm's length, you can't see the scars from when I literally tear myself apart. At arm's length, I'm not responsible for anyone.

Don't ask me to love you, don't tell me I can do no wrong. I don't want unconditional love. I want boundaries, I want to know that I've actually earned something worth having.

The fact is, I'm not perfect. And I don't want to be.

i can't write a metaphor, but we're going to be okay

2011-04-19T00:06:00.000-07:00

I don't know how to write a happy story. It could be because it always feels like bragging, but more likely it is because the only times I come close to happiness, the feeling is more akin to triumphant anger than to anything more familiar.

I heard that men seem more masculine when their head is raised, while women look more feminine when their face is lowered. Exactly when are we supposed to make eye contact, then? My own head finds it difficult to navigate these hemispheres of masculinity and femininity. The top of my head drops down to the pavement, but my chin refuses to give in, it raises itself above all of the hateful things in my chest. The result is like a ship slowly sinking.

The smell of your car tells me that nothing has changed, that nothing ever changes. The characters can change but we're still the same, waiting to make the same mistakes. I smile, content with the familiarity, reckless about what comes next. I wonder how we can take our mistakes and make them into second chances, but I just get impatient.

derek

2011-04-14T22:00:00.000-07:00

I'll be honest. I have no desire to write these days. Things have changed for me; I've left the house every day for four months. I've held a full time job, and I'm doing well in school. For the most part, the frustration and depression that fueled much of what I'd posted in the last year has been replaced by an extremely busy schedule.

I wouldn't rule out any posts completely, but I would say that anything I might post will be decidedly different from the ones preceding it. Less seriousness and more day-to-day. Hopefully people will still stick with me.

108

2011-04-08T19:50:00.001-07:00

I am saving my words. The ones that I share should have meaning; I begrudgingly spare as few words as I can to those around me, to the point that people become angry. They can sense that I feel as if I am wasting my meanings on them.

These days are short, they pass by quickly, they take away the pieces of me that I can barely hold together. I stitch myself back together at night, only to be torn apart again through the course of the day. The parts of myself that I wish to fleece off, like a heavy coat from that "winter of our discontent", they hang on me shabbily, while the small parts of me, the tiny feeling inside that I can be strong for myself, that I can fall in love again, that my heart is not made of glass, a cold fragile thing that shatters and cuts everything around it, is easily crushed again and again, yet strangely never destroyed, so that I can feel that same crushing pain the next day and the day after that.

There is no "book" — which, in a moment of honesty and being half-asleep, was revealed to be a desire to validate my self-pity. It may not be for the sake of honesty, or for the sake of forgiveness, it is not a goodbye, it is not for validation. I am trying to be useful.

On separate note, I am simultaneously excited for and dreading the start of the Spring Quarter, when I will be starting school again. This will coincide with my working full time (accomplished by the fact that I will be taking online courses). I will appreciate the opportunity to consume my life with more natural ambitions, but at the same time I know how tapped out I shall feel, as if my very soul is being drained, or rather, is being numbed to the point of silence.

the situation goes from bad to catastrophic

2011-03-08T22:35:00.000-08:00

At work, because there really isn't anything else to keep our minds from turning totally numb, we listen to the radio all day. Because I am the only person in the entire kitchen to listen to the kind of music that I do, the radio is usually tuned to some channel that only plays Rihanna and Katy Perry, along with the other popular musicians, which is something I have put up with five days a week for the last month and a half. Every once in a while, one of my coworkers will change the station; today, they chose a country music station. I didn't realize, until I was listening to a man sing "Tequila makes her clothes come off", that the bad situation with the radio could get any worse. So, in light of the fact that I was forced to listen to country music for eight hours, I have decided to do a quick little music post (literally, just links and maybe a sentence or two).

Wounded Rhymes - Lykke Li
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

Lykke Li has always been talented at expressing youthful romanticism, and Wounded Rhymes is no different. If Youth Novels was too girly or too young, Wounded Rhymes feels somewhat more mature.

Forget - Twin Shadow
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

It may seem that there are a lot of musicians that are revisiting the eighties these days, but when done well, these albums are incredibly worthwhile. Twin Shadow is no different, managing to be vaguely reminiscent of the 80s. The album is split between it's more dance-y moments and the slower, more thoughtful songs.

James Blake - James Blake
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

Though I haven't had much of a chance to listen to this album, it's quite obvious that Blake has fantastic vocals. The album and the songwriting is refined, and the whole thing definitely requires more than one listen in order to fully appreciate.

could you feel the fright of an age that was and could never be?

2011-03-05T21:40:00.000-08:00

If there is anything I have learned from books, it could be that falling in love is a lot like vertigo. It could be that it takes all the running you can do to stay in the same place. It could be that losing that feeling of Being Loved and Becoming Real to someone feels a lot like dying.

What is vertigo? Fear of falling? Then why do we feel it even when the observation tower comes equipped with a sturdy handrail? No, vertigo is something other than the fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves...We might also call vertigo the intoxication of the weak. Aware of his weakness, a man decides to give in rather than stand up to it. He is drunk with weakness, wishes to grow even weaker, wishes to fall down in the middle of the main square in front of everybody, wishes to be down, lower than down..."Pick me up," is the message of a person who keeps falling. — The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera

I told you that it would be easier than this, but we know now how much I misrepresented things. That night I planned for us to walk to that park bench, where we would part as not even friends, as something a little bit less that could have been a little bit more. Terrified of becoming an "us" instead of an "I", I planned to strangle that future before it could strangle the future I had dreamt for myself. Instead we leaned against the handrail and you held me tightly (consequently, I avoided the park I had planned to use to leave you, up until the day it snowed, a white blanket that covered up the danger signs until it was too late and I was running away screaming "Fuck you" all over again).

Even after it had been established that there was a four-eyed monster with our eyes and our hands roaming the streets of Seattle, the fear didn't subside but instead took a different shape. With the death of "I" came the fear of a death of "us": I was coming face to face with the "emptiness...against which, terrified", I needed to defend myself. Laying in bed side-by-side, before our ballet of punishment, I buried my face in your bed and cried. In the front seat of your car I let my limbs fall to my side and sat lifeless until you breathed me back to life. Shaking behind the bleachers, I whispered "Let's break up", only to hear you say that you still wanted me around. I was falling apart.

Alice never could quite make out, in thinking it over afterwards, how it was that they began: all she remembers is, that they were running hand in hand, and the Queen went so fast that it was all she could do to keep up with her: and still the Queen kept crying "Faster! Faster!" but Alice felt that she could not go faster, though she had no breath left to say so..."Are we nearly there?" Alice managed to pant out at last. "Nearly there!" the Queen repeated. "Why, we passed it ten minutes ago! Faster!...Here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place." — Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, Lewis Carroll

The memories aren't quite so vivid; immediately after the fact, the memories shorted out, as if the neuron pathways that added up to "us" had suddenly become disconnected. I sat on the bus to school, watching Bellevue pass by like a film reel, and in the absence of you the city became the object of my love. This stretch of sidewalk, forever immortalized since the day you jumped off of the 271 bus and ran after me, if only to walk me to the street corner, whereas just a block away was the stage for our public fight, where I screamed and cried as you sat contemplating my breakdown. The city shouldered the burden you abandoned to go to California, and I loved and hated it alternately. In the clear light of the early morning, I loved the city in which we once existed; at night I dreamed of tearing down our favorite buildings and single-handedly breaking the pavement we once traversed daily.

The formulas that added up to me and you were suddenly filled with irrational numbers, inequalities and unknown variables I didn't know how to comprehend. The memories disentangled themselves from any timeline whatsoever, became fractal and incomprehensible. Tonight we are sitting at Yummy Bites. "I want to move to Japan" is a phrase that is hanging over our tiny table. I sip my water calmly and catch the look in your eyes, the one that says, "I am trying to get to a place where you can't follow me." The dinner between us sits untouched. Tonight you are gripping my hand as we walk down the streets of Capitol Hill, tonight I am kicking you in the stomach as you struggle to focus on not crashing the car. Tonight, tonight, tonight you are ignoring my phone calls, tonight you are my best friend, forever I am chasing you, always just a little bit behind and to your right as you walk down the street (we don't even walk like a couple, but two angry people trying to pass each other).

And so the little Rabbit was carried out to the garden. Nearby he could see the raspberry canes, in whose shadow he had played with the Boy, and a great sadness came over him. Of what use was it to be loved and become Real if it all ended like this? And a tear, a real tear, trickled down his shabby velvet nose and fell to the ground. — The Velveteen Rabbit, Margery Williams

We are sitting in the car together for the last time. It was maybe the laptop, or the parking spaces again, or perhaps it was the fact that you were late and I wanted to walk away like I used to, until you were angry with me and told me to wait for you. You ask if there is still some time, and I nod and stare out the passenger window while you drive from Seattle to Bellevue to Redmond. I ask if we are going somewhere in particular, but you answer, "I just thought we'd go for a drive. Do you mind it?"

You park at the end of my neighborhood, near the house with the chain-link fence and a yard full of dog piss. We sit in the car, and soon enough we are kissing like it is goodbye. I used to worry until late into the night that this was the end and that I wouldn't remember where we had our last kiss, or what it felt like. I put my hand on your cheek, and I know that when I walk up that street and enter that house, that it will in fact be the death of "us". This is the only kiss that matters, small and defeated, rather than the tight-lipped, unhappy pecks that so frightened me, rather than the wide-eyed, inexperienced kisses that used to make you laugh.

"Everyday I walk these streets and feel like every door is closed on me. I start to wonder if I'm already homeless. I start to fear I'm the phantom, that he was real and I'm left behind, this ghost staining his city. So I scream, I cry, I laugh, I sing as I walk home, to prove to everyone that I'm the real one." We all know how the story ends. "Autumn passed and winter, and in the Spring, when the days grew warm and sunny"...The night that I was truly homeless, I sat on your couch with my suitcases by the door, and we laughed at one of our more harmless memories. My eye is swollen and bruised, and like a phoenix I have died and died again, but you look earnestly at me and I can tell that you can see "there was something familiar", that I had finally come back to look at the person that had first helped me to become Real.

do you want to be afraid?

2011-02-20T17:00:00.001-08:00

She hooks her little fingers around my ankle and begs me not to leave. "It's not safe out there", she breathes. Eventually her fingers tire and she lets go of her own accord, dusts off her little blue sweater and watches me walk through the front door. She really is quite well-behaved.

She waves to me from the window. She leans too heavily onto the screen, which slides out of its grooves. I watch as she falls right out of the window, hanging onto the ledge with one hand as her body swings sickly from side to side. I walk past the corner and the blue hedges, the traditional boundary of my childhood, and she disappears, pulled back into the house and into my memories by her forever over-protective big sister.

At the bus stop, I ask her, "Don't you want to be happy?" I smile and thank the driver as I get on the bus and I know that she has reeled in the tether.

the night has opened my eyes

2011-02-17T20:03:00.000-08:00

As of last month I have joined the ranks of the employed. Because I work all day and spend the entire night recuperating and otherwise being lazy, I haven't had much of a chance to catch up on 2011. You may think, it's only February, how much new music can a person really get behind on? Technically I'm still catching up on 2010. Luckily, I got off work early on Sunday, and was able to sit down and listen to some music.

As always, the mediafire links will only be up for about a month, or a little longer, depending on when I get around to it.

+ - Wise Blood
Bandcamp | Pitchfork Rising | Mediafire

Not my vote for best album art of the year, but a very strong EP. There are some obvious influences from Animal Collective and particularly Panda Bear, but on its own Wise Blood does an incredible job of reinventing pop songs. The songs are fairly short, and at only five songs the EP is just long enough to make a future release "highly anticipated". (And, I am aware that this is from 2010.)

Zonoscope - Cut Copy
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

I hesitated to review Zonoscope. That hesitation started post In Ghost Colours, when nearly anything from 2008 was suddenly tainted by memories I wanted to put behind me. So when I knew that I would have to listen to Zonoscope, I expected the worst. But after having listened to it all the way through (and then nonstop for the next few days), it's hard for me to remember exactly why I would ever hold anything against such an amazing band. Even if you are in the middle of battling snow, or hail, or whatever else winter is throwing at you, Cut Copy manages to bring a breezy, summery album that is easy to like.

Space is Only Noise - Nicolas Jaar
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

This album fell under my radar after hearing "I Got A Woman". For those that are already familiar with Nicolas Jaar, Space Is Only Noise may feel a little slower than his previous singles, and for those that have never heard of him before, it is easy enough to enjoy the album. The songs feel light and melodic, and is easier to take in all at once, rather than randomly or in pieces.

Dye it Blonde - Smith Westerns
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

This album appealed to me right from the opening track, with the whole album feeling drunken, joyful, and dreamy. The Smith Westerns find a perfect balance between 2011 and 90s Britpop influences. I feel like I might be selling the album short if I don't write more about it, but I'll be honest and just say that it would mean more to me if I had spent more time with it.

This is all I feel prepared to write for now, though I am sitting on quite a few more albums. I guess that will just be something for readers to look forward to.

everybody cares, everybody understands

2011-02-15T21:54:00.000-08:00

I was planning on making a playlist for 2011's best music so far, as well as some of the albums I didn't get to in 2010. I also have big plans for making a Sasquatch sampler playlist. And even though today was my only day off for the rest of this week, I didn't have much of a chance to get to it, mainly because I am exhausted.

For those that don't know, I have joined the ranks of the employed, and full-time at that. I have been working at a cookie bouquet store, which sounds a lot nicer than the reality. The reality is, I just barely survived Valentine's day. So though I would love to spend a few hours struggling with a thesaurus, I am actually planning on spending the night studying some Chinese and eating noodles.

how to panic quietly

2011-02-09T20:13:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting on the edge of my seat, and I am crying.

There are a lot of things that have brought me to this tiny square of an office. I look past the reception and half expect to see me, age 13, following a dark-haired woman to a blandly decorated room, a mixture of anxiety and relief written all over my face.

As I delicately dab the tears from my eyes (Don't make any sudden movements, or they won't believe you're okay, my brain warns me), I let the part of me that has the story memorized run free while my mind rewinds. I am telling her about hearing the paramedics ask him, "What did you take?", but I am still out in the lobby, I am un-crossing the street, sitting at the bus stop. I am in the bookstore, trying to decide if I want to be happy or safe, I am sitting on the bus waiting for the day to start. Things are slowly coming undone.

The woman is smiling from across the desk, beaming with pride. "Do you mind if I ask you something? It doesn't have to do with your intake screening."

"Oh, sure, what is it?"

"How did you work up the courage to leave your house? I'm just curious."

I look at her and realize that I honestly don't know how to answer her. I have left my house a thousand times, and a thousand times have traveled the world and space and the sea. In fact, I am a million light years away, screaming and tearing things apart, I am somewhere panicking and cursing everyone that has ostracized me since I have left school. By the time any of that anger will have reached anyone here on earth, everyone I know will already be dead.

"Well, you should really feel proud of yourself."

"Yeah, it's really only been a month since I decided to leave my house for the first time in six months."

She is going through her list of questions again. We talk about abuse, drugs, relationships, traumas. She asks me if I have had any anger issues. She glosses over the question of whether I have ever run away from home. The question of suicide and self-hurt hang heavily in the air as I lie. I don't bother to correct anything, and she says jokingly, "You're getting kind of boring here, Amanda." We both laugh, as if I am someone that has laughed a lot in the last year.

I stand outside for a while, where the air is cold and crisp. I can't tell if I am shaking from the cold or from what I've just made myself do. You're going to get better. I get on the bus towards downtown Bellevue, ready to be happy.

i think it's alright to feel inhuman, now

2011-02-06T13:38:00.000-08:00

Lake Washington, c. 1912

Postcard: "Just a few words as I am real busy doing nothing.

I have nothing to do but eat and sleep but O,

I would rather have something to do."

Like Alexander before me, I set the city on fire before descending in my white-glass diving bell. As my city of friends and bright futures burned to ashes, I spent the summer in my diving bell, a locked, pressurized chamber full of borrowed air, with Bauby and Alexander. Historians will tell you that it is impossible for Alexander to have stayed in his diving bell for days, just as those around me had sat back, folded their arms and said, "You'll get better."

"Getting better" is as labored as the evolution of deep sea technology. It moves as slowly as "the speed of a hair growing from the base of the brain" (which made Jean-Do excellent company). As summer turned to fall, my diving bell turned to a benthoscope, capable of withstanding the higher pressure as people were losing their patience with me. "Life doesn't happen like this. You have to try harder to be normal."

Last month was the difference between the diving bell and the smoke helmet. It was the difference between a locked chamber and actual mobility, the difference between crying at the thought of leaving and actually packing my suitcases. But this diving suit was imperfect, I laid my head down in a bed that wasn't my own and the helmet soon flooded with the reality that I wouldn't be able to stay out like this. I left the apartment and went back to the safety of my diving bell.

These days I can put on an atmospheric diving suit, I can leave my diving bell. I can cross those railroad tracks and run past the school bus depository. I can watch the sun set over downtown Bellevue, I can believe that I will eventually see the surface again. But these days I am still tethered to my diving bell, I am still afraid to get on that bus and see Tyres in ruin.

I whisper to myself, "I think it's alright to feel inhuman, now" and continue to recover the wreckage that I wrought on my life.

new name, same blog

2011-01-30T14:27:00.000-08:00

I've had this blog for a long time. But in the last year I feel I've moved farther away from whatever Hipsteradio used to be. This new name may be tentative, I have no idea what name will actually stick.

I'd change the web address as well, but I am fairly certain that it would screw up everyone's bookmarks.

but their alarm vanished

2011-01-25T21:08:00.000-08:00

I am trying to comfort you.

There are bandages on your fingers and you're telling me you can't write anymore. You are losing control of your body, all of your teeth fell out last night and you were afraid to get out of the elevator. You think that maybe if you had one good night's sleep the circles under your eyes would stop reminding you of the black eye you had just last week. Sometimes you think that the fingers are still gripping your neck, crushing your windpipe, because you look into her eyes and the fear is still there, the fear she has that you were a mistake.

You'd like to think that your existence is more substantial than a narrowly avoided abortion, you'd like to believe that there was a reason why you are afraid of leaving the house and why you are going blind and why you feel so angry that your insides melt from suppressing screams. You are cutting things away; first was the long hair you spent over a year with to remind you that you were losing your mind, then it was your belongings because you realized things need to fit into a suitcase, now it is your sleep and your health and writing and music and school and even the skin off your fingers. You want to keep going like this forever, you want it to end right now.

I've never been able to comfort you.

let's go surfing

2011-01-22T18:10:00.000-08:00

I came home to an empty room. The Winnie-the-Pooh nightshirt that was ripped the night you broke up with me was not on the floor where I had left it yesterday morning — my mother always hated it, having to remember hearing me awake late at night crying into the phone, asking you not to leave me. The shelves, which had held so much of the memories I couldn't remember anymore, were ransacked, as was my bed. I started to inventory which old bears were missing, but realized it would hurt too much. I let the survivors retire on my now bare shelves and crawled into my empty bed.

Three years ago I must have left a piece of myself in your apartment. It was something I couldn't get back, because I didn't want to see the place that I loved so much. You neglected to put it in the bag of my belongings you returned to me just to see me hurt and ask you back again, though I doubt you would have found it in the first place: you never really knew how much I wanted to be with you. I sat on the couch that night, and she was there with me, making me anxious to see you, making me jealous and hurt and horny, all the emotions that made you call me "hysterical" and want me even more. And, just like back then, it wasn't right.

Even though I only had to hear it second-hand, I can imagine the biting tone of your voice as you ask angrily, "Why are you calling me?". I have to smile inside at the fact that my sister told you to fuck off, but more importantly I realized you probably wanted me to die. Or at least try to. It would have made us even, in a sick sort of way.

As I drag my body up the stairs, tired from being stared at, I can't help but wish to have someone in my life that isn't attracted to me at all. I want to be that old married couple that isn't quite old enough that everything is forgiven, or young enough that they are even remotely interested in sex with each other anymore. I don't want to be physical and crazy, I don't want to be held responsible for every single breath you take. I just want a friend to help me forget how empty my life is.

now that you're here

2011-01-09T13:31:00.000-08:00

I am unsure of how many people actually noticed my thanking them for all the wonderful comments, sporadically clicking "like" at the bottom of my posts, and for following my blog. I could say that the end of the year list was my way of thanking everybody, but just in case people didn't realize it (and will therefore miss out on those previous downloads, since I'm taking down all the links), here are a few more things to download. After reviewing all the albums I listed, there are quite a few glaring omissions that I will fill in now.

Gorilla Manor - Local Natives
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

Not to be mean, but I'm honestly not surprised that I forgot about this album. Though Gorilla Manor does a lot of things right, even upon its first listen it feels extremely familiar. But this by far is no real criticism, Local Natives knows what works and goes with it. Gorilla Manor functions as a nice reminder that you don't need to force yourself to sit through an album just to spew some technical jargon to look smart.

Body Talk - Robyn
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

I don't know many people that admit to listening to Robyn, or even people that have heard of her before (we're not all in tune with Swedish pop). Though I've listened to Robyn, her self-titled album from 2005, I don't imagine her music to be something many people would admit to liking, as her beats are dangerously close to other, more laughable pop stars. Even so, Body Talk, much like Robyn before it, is much deeper than just dance floor music. Robyn is dimensional, and though her lyrics may not make you rip your heart out, it's hard not to relate, even if you might not be a pop star.

Love Remains - How To Dress Well
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

Growing up, my sister would take me into the back bedroom whenever our parents went out so we could sit by the radio and listen to music. Most of that time I spent studying the pattern in the couch while my sister stood next to the radio, waiting to hear her favorite songs. Through her influence, I listened to a lot of R&B as a child, and though today she will sometimes drag me into her room to listen to some old song we both heard together, the majority of those songs have already disintegrated in my memory, only a few strands of melodies actually triggering any memories (though, not surprisingly, I still remember that couch pretty vividly). Love Remains encapsulates that feeling of 1980s-1990s R&B, filtered through the years. Lyrics are half-mumbled, melodies hummed, and you can literally here vinyl crackling.

Gemini - Wild Nothing
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

I've only spent a small amount of time with this album, having a hard time really remembering this album because everything felt a bit too fleeting (and I'll be honest, the album cover kind of creeps me out if I stare at it too long). Like the album above, Gemini also remembers 1980s music fondly, this time paying tribute to guitar-pop, sometimes channeling Johnny Mar or the Cure. The album is ripe with sulky, the trials of young love, and just about every other adolescent experience you can possibly romanticize.

Treats - Sleigh Bells
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

It was a huge surprise to me that I managed to forget this album. It's a small consolation to realize that I don't have this album on my iPod or computer anymore, which would explain why I never had it on my list, but even so, it seems like something as loud as Treats would be a little harder to forget. Though I can understand that many people might be repelled by the sheer loudness of the album, at the same time, there is something very special about it. The music isn't loud just to be abrasive, but is instead satisfying. As Mark Richardson puts it, "The visceral thrill of Treats may not last forever, but neither does life; right now, this feels like living it".

These links will only be up for about three weeks. Thanks, again, for all the people that actually read through all the depressing stuff I've written over the last year.

our bodies went missing in the night

2011-01-05T21:32:00.000-08:00

At night, if I can arrange my blankets just right, there is a tunnel that I can slip into that leads straight into your bed. You grab me around the waist and pull me back under the covers. You whisper to me, "It's not right to be so miserable." I nod, because I know you're going to let me go again, and I'll wake up in my bed alone.

When I'm there, there are no more questions. When you hold my hand like that, it's hard to remember anything that's happened in the last year.

I woke up this morning with blue ink on my thigh, it read "Why I'd rather dream than sit around bleakly with bores in 'real' life". I like to invent you, my own personal funny little frog, but sometimes I wake up and I am only talking to myself. I'd rather dream of you than sit around in real life.

ghost of yesterday

2011-01-03T20:46:00.000-08:00

I found it behind a pile of books crammed into a corner of my room, untouched since I stopped writing three years ago. I thought it was empty, like the other half a dozen notebooks with beautiful covers that I refuse to write in. But reaching for a new notebook, the cover lifted and there it was, a snapshot of someone I was three years ago. It was like looking at an old friend that will never come back.

Three years hardly feel like any time at all, but I can't remember the last time I felt the way she did. I've been trying to resurrect a ghost, holding onto what I thought were feelings just in order to have something to write about. She doesn't say much; she doesn't need fancy words, or an endless string of metaphors, but it's easy enough to figure out that she's in love. There are only three entries, all before everything fell apart.

My fingers trace the juvenile handwriting, and I want so much to protect her from what's to come. I'd never let her go to the transit center that day, I'd tell her to hold onto that feeling just a little longer because you won't be happy again for a very long time. But all I have is an old notebook.

p.10

2010-12-30T14:52:00.000-08:00

Really, this thing isn't freaking over yet? I'm going to try and wrap this thing up. Here are some other obvious best albums of the year, just to get them out of the way. If I have time left over, I will add some of the other albums I've gotten from this year that got less attention.

Forgiveness Rock Record - Broken Social Scene
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

Though I've been a long-time fan of Broken Social Scene, I really wasn't as interested in Forgiveness Rock Record as I thought I would be. The only track that really stuck with me was "Sweetest Kill", which really just overshadowed the entire album. I know that I'm kind of selling this album short; the concept of forgiveness is fantastic, and the album does a great job of balancing the gravity of forgiveness without getting crushed by it.

Broken Dreams Club - Girls
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

I'll be honest, I didn't actually listen to this one until last night before falling asleep. As per usual, Girls has made quite a few beautiful, heartbreaking songs. These songs feel wistful, while at the same time managing to still feel hopeful. And it always helps that Christopher Owens included a hand-written letter.

Halcyon Digest - Deerhunter
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

Again, here is another album that I really haven't spent a lot of time with. Even so, you don't need to know every technical detail of the album or have every lyric memorized to recognize that Deerhunter has once again made a beautiful, hard to pin down album. The whole thing feels languid and weird, but with Deerhunter's unique take on "pop music".

I am sure that I am missing a few, but looking through all of the albums I've reviewed thus far, I feel as if that's already a pretty good summary of the year so far. There may be a couple more albums that I will tack on as I listen to them (unbelievably, there are still twenty or so more albums I have yet to listen to).

I have to say that listening to some of these albums and being reminded of where I was when I last heard them has been weird. The start and the end of the year feel like they were lifetimes away; in this blog alone there are miles upon miles of sentences I have written between who I was last January and who I am now.

p.9

2010-12-29T17:43:00.000-08:00

This morning I woke up to a tiny dusting of snow on the roof and on our deck. By the time I finished eating my breakfast the snow had already almost completely melted. I keep hoping it will snow more sometime during the day, but seeing as this is Bellevue, I highly doubt we'll get anything more.

Yesterday's break was much needed; I hadn't realized that cramming all of the music I could listen to in a small span of time would actually burn me out so much. Luckily today I have no real distractions, other than relocating music files. I will have to write about these albums without actually listening to them, which is harder than it sounds sometimes.

Subiza - Delorean
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

Last year I listened to Ayrton Senna EP and had hoped that they would make a full album in the same vein. Subiza, then, was a fantastic album building on all of the the things that they did right with Ayrton Senna EP without being stale. Delorean manages to make effortless pop music, combining Balearic disco influences with dance pop and indie. It really doesn't matter if you can identify all the different influences in a single track on Subiza, because ultimately the album wins you over with its beautiful pop music.

Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

There are any number of reasons why you might not like Crystal Castles, from their horrible behavior to just plain not liking their first album. Their second album is a move closer to pop music, with moments of clarity and sparse sound instead of the pounding barrage of noise their debut delivered. Even so, Crystal Castles is still familiar; all they're doing here is adding depth to their craft.

Cults 7" - Cults
Pitchfork Rising | Bandcamp

These three tracks seem hardly enough to warrant a place on any list, but all the same, they are three very solid tracks. As could be expected, there is a hell of a lot of anticipation for their debut album, not just based on "Go Outside", but also their successful single "Oh My God', recorded for Adult Swim.

I would attempt a couple more, but simply don't have the time. Perhaps tomorrow!

whoops

2010-12-28T19:10:00.000-08:00

So I am in the middle of switching over all of my music files onto my new external hard drive, which means there is no music today. Plus there's a chance that I'll have to go on another stupid night jog, hopefully sans the creepy man standing on the street corner and minus all the rain.

p.8

2010-12-27T16:26:00.000-08:00

One might have thought that it was both too rainy and too dark to run tonight, but it was surprisingly enjoyable. Each house was all decked out in Christmas decorations, and it was finally peaceful after several days cooped up with the family. Aside from the hooded man standing alone at the street corner, jogging at night is barely scary.

Autre Ne Veut - Autre Ne Veut

Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

I wasn't really sure I would enjoy this album. Like Jamie Lidell's masterful Multiply, Autre Ne Veut is disarming and surprisingly enjoyable, though that may not occur to you right away (at least, if you are not a very open-minded person towards modern R&B). Though at times his voice may feel harsh and his music seems a little more out-there than you're used to, there is a substantive amount of hooks and melodies to make it feel at once unfamiliar but still pleasant.

The Suburbs - Arcade Fire

Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

I think Ian Cohen sums it up best: "This is another 2010 example of a Boss-indebted band (see also: the National and Titus Andronicus) making epic outpourings of modern disillusionment and disappointment for people who can commiserate and return to fretting about their jobs and bank accounts once the house lights go up. But just because the concerns of The Suburbs are at times mundane, that makes them no less real. And that Arcade Fire can make such powerful art out of recognizing these moments makes our own existences feel worthy of documentation. By dropping Neon Bible's accusatory standpoint,The Suburbs delivers a life-affirming message similar to Funeral's: We're all in this together."

Lasted - Benoit Pioulard

Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

I think some might find this one a little bit boring. Most of the time, you can't always hear exactly what Thomas Meluch is singing, and for those that are heavily dependent on lyrics for their music experience may be frustrated. But Lasted is more about garnering a feeling than it is about clever turns of phrase and obscure references that will have you cross-referencing encyclopedias.

Special Affections - Diamond Rings

Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

I'm sure that this one will bring at least a couple of smiles. It is admittedly a little endearing that John O'Regan's debut album also came with something of a transformation, admitting that at times he's "feeling like a bit-part actor". It helps that his music is interminably catchy, and O'Regan does us the favor of making his love songs feel universally relatable.

Blooming Summer - Blue Hawaii

Band Info | Download

I only heard of this band because of a friend that brought it to my attention in early November. At the time I wasn't even listening to music very exclusively, instead trying to find my escapism in a few television comedies. Instead, Blooming Summer offers a kind of lush, dreamy, hazy avant-pop album. Every once in a while we need an album that feels at once removed from everything while still feeling deeply affected by it.

p.7

2010-12-26T14:54:00.000-08:00

I will wish everyone the obligatory holiday wishes that are so expected. People can consider this my Christmas present to everyone, though, like fruitcake, it has an expiration date. I do still plan to remove the download links within the first couple weeks of the new year. I wanted to post something yesterday, but I must've taken something like five or six short naps that day. And even as I write now, I am watching the Seahawks game (and am unable to listen to music as I write).

I have to say that I am a little thankful for writing about these albums. I forgot how nice it is to not be in my own head for a while. If I were relied on to write on something truly my own, I would be forced to trawl my memories for just a remnant of a memory of a feeling. And it feels better to write about something concrete rather than forcing myself to write empty words that hold little interest for me. Anyways, these next few albums do not hold any themes or patterns in common other than their release date.

Black Noise - Pantha du Prince
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

I originally intended to add this to my list of albums that required a little bit of effort. I say this because this particular album seems a little bit lackluster; there is no shortage of techno albums out there. This only came on my radar because of their collaboration with Panda Bear. At times the album feels so dense it could be impenetrable, and the album really only rewards those that truly invest themselves into it. But, even if you cannot really break the album down, it still offers a few worthwhile moments.

Go - Jonsi
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

Not everybody finds Jonsi endearing. For those of us that always wondered what Sigur Ros was really singing about, well, it's true, they really were singing about running elephants, icicles and tying strings to clouds. Though this album will hardly win over people that didn't like Sigur Ros in the first place, what is finally nice is that Go seems to be more about the uplift rather than the long building formula that Sigur Ros is so well known for.

Just a little sidenote, my sister is going through her things to throw away old stuff she doesn't want anymore. Anyways, she just found her birth certificate, and she drew on the back "I do not like Amanda. I just like Momy (sic) and me. Hmmm."

Big Echo - The Morning Benders
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

This one was an early favorite of mine. Though the second half of the album feels denser and slower than the first half, Big Echo has quite a few winning moments, particularly "Promises". The album feels truly effortless, and the concepts and emotions behind each song is easy enough to relate to. Big Echo is a nice reminder that you do not always need to work hard to make an album rewarding; sometimes it just comes easy.

Plastic Beach - Gorillaz
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

I'll be honest and admit that I have not truly listened to Plastic Beach, primarily because I've never really listened to Gorillaz. Though the concept of the cartoon characters is indeed originally and at times very intriguing, Plastic Beach makes them feel a little superfluous; Gorillaz is now at the point that their appeal can be based just on their music.

One Life Stand - Hot Chip
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

You could say that this is their best album to date, you could call it sophistication or growth, but personally I just love that these songs are about love. Because each song is of the same consistent quality, it almost feels as tied together as a concept album, though it doesn't require beating your brain trying to figure out the plot or concept of the album. And it's very impressive that these songs express an honest desire to just have a committed, reciprocal relationship rather than the more common songs of frustrated love.

Okay, my mom is practicing shooting a bb gun, and I really want to watch while the game is still in halftime.

p.6

2010-12-24T18:09:00.000-08:00

Ideally I'd be farther along on my list than this, but there are still several albums that I haven't even gotten around to listening to yet, and there are several more that I need to listen to again just to remind myself what they sound like. It's a lot harder to write them now, considering the fact that it is Christmas Eve afterall, and between helping out with dinner and all the family activities we have going on, there really isn't much left over to waste on well-written reviews. So instead, here are some hastily written reviews, written in between various family functions.

Facit - Sakert!
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

So maybe you've heard of Hello Saferide. Maybe you thought her music was endearingly silly, and though at first you were drawn to it on that premise, you eventually felt that you're just a little more serious than that. Facit is a chance for people to hear Annika Norlin without the pigeonhole. Without having to rely on her lyrics (unless, of course, you speak Svenska), you might actually hear Norlin as a musician and not a public figure.

Epic - Sharon Van Etten
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

Epic doesn't exactly break ground. It doesn't need to; the album simply aims to explore relationships and love in as many different angles possible. With only seven tracks, the album is surprisingly ripe with emotion, owing a lot to Van Etten's beautiful voice. The music doesn't rely on a diverse palette of sounds, nor does it rely on popular trends in music to carry it along, instead favoring simpler arrangements and all the emotional performance Van Etten can pack into a single note.

The Age of Adz - Sufjan Stevens
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

It's honestly a little bit shameful how long I waited to listen to this album (I think I heard it for the first time last night). But anyone knows that a Sufjan Stevens album is not something to dip your toes into: his albums require a thoughtfulness that only his fans and people that pride themselves in trying to understand albums can muster. And Sufjan does not disappoint the listener; The Age of Adz is at once carefully orchestrated and emotionally chaotic, with Sufjan leaning towards a darker tale of love. Even naysayers, who have in the past felt that Sufjan was just a little bit too cute to stand, will enjoy this album.

Okay, well, I would have preferred to add just one more album, but you know, it's Christmas Eve and all that.

p.5

2010-12-23T17:52:00.000-08:00

The great thing about writing all of this stuff is that it takes up such a huge part of my day that might otherwise be spent playing game and after game of minesweeper. Though I am beginning to feel that I am really just writing all of this for myself. So I guess, either way, my time would be wasted. The following are albums that took a while for me to like, for one reason or another. Though some were worth the effort of growing into it, others are just things you aren't going to like very much right away, and even after you see its merits, you're still just not that interested.

Odd Blood - Yeasayer
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

Despite a very promising single and a whole lot of hype, I think that most people would agree with me that Odd Blood kind of fell short of everyone's high hopes. Aside from "Ambling Alp", Odd Blood has been all but written off as a flop. And though even I have not listened to Odd Blood anywhere near as many times as I have listened to other albums, it still has its moments, particularly "O.N.E.", "Madder Red", and "I Remember".

High Violet - The National
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

I know quite a few people personally that would never, ever touch an album by The National. And I wouldn't quite blame them; Matt Berninger seems to have a hard time emoting. But I also know a few other people that believed The National hit it out of the park with Alligator and Boxer (myself included). Personally, listening to High Violet for the first time was something of a disappointment — it felt entirely unfamiliar and just a little too ornate. Even so, High Violet is something of an intense album, exploring the same old themes of just trying to muster all the effort it takes to live life the way everyone expects you to.

Sisterworld - Liars
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

Okay, I think this might anger a few people. But what can I say, I've just never really been a fan. I don't think I really understand the appeal. I am entirely aware that Liars has put out consistently great albums, but for all the energy I put into them, I just can't ever seem to pay attention long enough to hear what everybody else is hearing. But even so, I can understand the merit. When it comes to tension, Sisterworld really delivers.

Romance Is Boring - Los Campesinos!
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

I'm not sure how many people have listened to this album (I don't know any people personally that listen to Los Campesinos!), but as far as truly relate-able albums go, Romance Is Boring is at once incredibly honest and endearingly humorous. The whole thing feels like it's about to explode with emotional catharsis; Gareth is direct and honest about his personal life, but at the same time poetic, witty, and insightful (whatever the moment demands). There are really few albums that are as quite satisfying.

p.4

2010-12-23T16:59:00.000-08:00

I guess these next few albums can be considered my summer albums. Some of these might feel summer-y, and others are just things I listened to during the summer. I didn't really listen to a lot during the summer, mainly relying on my whatever was on my iPod at the time.

Crazy For You - Best Coast
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

An obvious pick for "summer album" would have to be Crazy For You. The album is about as straightforward as you can get; instead of attempting grandiose or poetic statements about love and other feelings, Bethany Cosentino tells you exactly how she feels and what's on her mind. At best, Crazy For You is easily relate-able and honest, and at worst Cosentino uses a few too many crazy/lazy rhyme schemes. But the album is more likely to win you over through its effortless melodies and endearing sentiments than make its faults felt.

King of the Beach - Wavves
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

I'm not entirely sure everyone likes Wavves. It might be the level of noise they put out, it might be the curse words (some of us have parents that listen in on our music!), or simply the string of bad PR post-Wavvves. In a lot of ways, King of the Beach is a bit redeeming; each track is just a little bit cleaner and more melodious. And it's hard not to empathize with Nathan Williams when he sings about how all his old friends hate him, feeling inadequate, feeling like an idiot, and the feeling that even if you apologize for everything you've done wrong, it wouldn't make a difference anyways.

The Wild Hunt - The Tallest Man On Earth
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

Surprisingly, I listened to this album almost every single night during the summer when I needed something to calm my nerves enough to fall asleep. I'll be the first to say that if you're the type of the person that finds unique voices distracting or even detracting from the music, you might want to put this album down (my mom thinks John Lennon sings nasally; imagine what she'd say about Kristian Matsson). But most people that have ever truly listened to an album by The Tallest Man On Earth will know that there is so much more going on than just a Bob Dylan-like voice. Though the album may seem a little simple with mainly guitars and Matsson singing, it at once feels very intimate and aching with emotion. (And, "King of Spain" has to be one of the best songs of the year.)

In Evening Air - Future Islands
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

I didn't know much about Future Islands when I listened to In Evening Air. In fact, the only reason it even showed up on my radar was because my friend, whose taste in music is impeccable, suggested it to me. When you listen to them for the first time, Samuel T. Herring's performance can seem at times a little over-the-top. But their music seems to necessitate it; most of the songs seem to tell a narrative that requires a bit more theatricality than the standard album. In any case, the album almost achieves catharsis at times, and is incredibly rewarding.

Beach Fossils - Beach Fossils
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

I might have paid a little less attention to this album as I would have to something like Teen Dream, but all the same this is possibly one of my favorite "summer-y" albums. Not a surprise that it sounds like that whole strain of bands that seem to be occupied with beach-scapes and masking their voices in as much reverb as possible. You could accuse these guys of sounding like a lot of other lo-fi bands, but the album offers a breezy album that is easy to enjoy.

Sun Bronzed Greek Gods - Dom
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

I can easily imagine some people hating me for thoroughly enjoying this band. Especially if you're on Christopher Owens' side when it came to Dom's comments on the possibility that it was all just "his publicist's idea". But when it comes to effortlessly enjoyable albums, Sun Bronzed Greek Gods is damn near perfect. Catchy, sincere, and at times incredibly amusing and funny, each of the seven tracks are manage to feel refreshing.

Done done done done done! I have been writing this thing for six hours, thanks.

p.3

2010-12-22T23:45:00.000-08:00

After a crazy long day running around Seattle (with a cold, mind you), I will attempt to write another installment of my list. Since I must have walked somewhere around 2 or possibly even 3 miles today, I don't have much energy to write about anything other than some of the albums that I enjoyed early on in the year, and so in all likelihood these albums will seem like old news to you.

Contra - Vampire Weekend
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

Well, here's an obvious one. It was one of the first albums of the year to get a high rating on Pitchfork, and unless you've been hiding under a rock for the last year, you've probably heard at least one song off of Contra sometime during the year, whether from performances on late night television or the many commercials that have used their song (and if you wanted, you could say that these guys started the whole vintage-polaroid-for-the-album-art thing). You can accuse these guys of whatever musical crimes you will, but you can hardly get any closer to a funner pop album than the stuff these guys turn out, and if you actually spend any time with their lyrics sheet, you might find that you actually like what they're writing about.

Teen Dream - Beach House
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

It's hard for me to put into words exactly how I feel about this album, particularly because the whole thing evokes a sort of hazy, uncertain, lonesome feeling that just makes you want to curl up with this album and feel sorry for yourself for a while. Though the lyrics are choppy and the phrasing strange, the emotion of the album is very clear; each song explores themes of loneliness and estrangement, sometimes not recognizing the people around you or even recognizing yourself.

Have One On Me - Joanna Newsom
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

Maybe you've heard of this little album. If you are anything like me, you were nothing less than thrilled to hear that Newsom was releasing a triple album, simply because you can't get enough of her amazing songwriting. Or maybe you were just intrigued by the idea of an album that lasted nearly 2 hours and wanted to see if you could actually sit still long enough to listen to the whole thing in one go. Newsom's music can be surprisingly polarizing, whether it is the incredibly dense and cryptic lyrics or (much more likely) her unique voice. For those of us that enjoy unraveling puzzling songs, Have One On Me does not disappoint.

There Is Love In You - Four Tet
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

Anyone that has been around in the last year will know that I love Four Tet. Hebden has released an impressive number of albums and EPs, and they have all been consistently great, and as per usual, the album has some actual sounds from Hebden's personal life ("Pablo's Heart" is literally Pablo's heart).. There Is Love In You was apparently born on a dance floor while Hebden was DJ-ing in London, though it doesn't necessarily feel like something to be written off as a dance album. Though it is certainly a moving album, it is also thoughtful, demands attention, never to be relegated to background music.

Heartland - Owen Pallett
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

Full disclosure, I haven't actually spent as much time with this album as it truly deserves. The album has a very well thought out imaginative world, with a very specific character and a storyline. Though Owen Pallett has been making great music for a very long time, Heartland is obviously a step up in songcraft, and though everything seems just a bit grander and more eloquent than Has A Good Home, there are still moments of fantastic hooks. And though the album is rooted in an imaginative land, the emotion is completely relate-able.

p.2

2010-12-21T19:30:00.000-08:00

I guess that if I want to share all the albums I have, I should post at least one more segment today. And since I woke up from a nap and feel as refreshed as I can possibly feel when my throat feels like someone decided to grate it with a cheese grater in my sleep, I will attempt to post some more albums right now. (Oh, and in case you can't tell, I am not really trying to be eloquent here. I would invest more time proofreading and trying to sound like I have some command of the English language, but...well, I'm just not going to until after I'm not sick anymore.)

Kilimanjaro - Superpitcher
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

Again, I have only listened to this album for the first time today, and this is my first time ever listening to Superpitcher. Even with just a cursory listen, the album expresses a lot of gloom and loneliness, but is still surprisingly enjoyable. The album rarely drags along, and Superpitcher does an expert job of using a very wide palette of sounds, but never makes any of them feel out of place. Although there are only 11 tracks, each one is actually quite lengthy, and the album tips the scale at just over an hour. And even if you don't have the patience for the whole album, the song "Joanna" makes it all worth it.

Astro Coast - Surfer Blood
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

Okay, well obviously this album has my vote for best album cover of this year. Even if the album cover is a little bit too intense for you, the music itself is sure to please. Each song is chock-full of hooks, and if you have a craving for an album that just has some really great guitar-playing, this one is it. There really isn't much to say about this album, other than its appeal speaks for itself. At just 10 tracks, the album is just short enough to necessitate a second listen without making the guitar sound tired or too familiar. I couldn't recommend any album more than this (and yet my words couldn't fall more short. Seriously, guys, listen to it if you haven't already!!!)

Ring - Glasser
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

To my personal frustration, Glasser has been compared to Bat for Lashes a little bit too much for my own comfort. The comparison is easy to understand; both artists have a signature kind of breathy vocal and a penchant for music that seems to attempt to achieve a higher art than just being popular. But unlike Bat for Lashes, Glasser's music manages to be effortless rather than put on, and is instantly easy to like.

Two Thousand and Ten Injuries - Love is All
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

To me it seems like such a shame that Love is All isn't more popular. Since their debut, the band has put forth two other albums that have largely been swallowed up by the swarm of other albums we have access to, thanks to the internet. In fact, Love is All has released consistently amazing albums and offer a very unique sound, but enjoy far less recognition for it than would be expected. True, the incredibly intense saxophone playing might put off a few of the weak-hearted. And true, not everyone thinks singing with an accent is adorable. But above all that, Love is All sings honest songs about making out then falling out and then making up, about how a million injuries and getting drunk and regretting it, about thinking you are over your ex until you see them with someone else, and wanting to show that you've matured. And not to mention, in the age of chillwave, sometimes it's fun to have an album that tries to make as much noise as they can possibly muster.

Nocturne of Exploded Crystal Chandelier - Sun Airway
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

I'll be first to admit that there are moments when Sun Airway feels like they're floating right up into their own dreamy world. If at moments their language seems a little too dreamy to be believable or relate-able, they redeem themselves with moments of honesty, like the lines "I'm just waiting on you to bring yourself to justice" and "I'm just looking for a perfect sentence to keep us alive". And above all else, Nocturne of Exploded Crystal Chandelier is remarkably warm. Besides, who doesn't want a little more dreaminess in their life?

p.1

2010-12-21T15:11:00.000-08:00

Considering the fact that I am trying to cram listening to a whole year's worth of albums into the last few days, I hardly know where to start, and having the attention span of a goldfish really isn't doing me any favors right now either. I should state that I do not want to emphasize any album over the other; of course there are favorites, but I really have no interest in categorizing anything. So I will just start the list based on whatever I am listening to at the moment.

Pope Killdragon - Strand of Oaks
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

I'll be honest, as I'm typing this, this is the first time I have listened to the album (I only got it yesterday), but even with a preliminary listen, it's quite obvious that the album necessitates an hour set aside with nothing but good headphones and a lyrics sheet. Each track is at once mesmerizing, heavy, and incredibly imaginative.

O - Oval
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

Okay, so maybe 70 tracks seems a little daunting. You might even think, how is it even possible to write 70 separate tracks for a single album, let alone actually listen to them all. But, have no fear, for most of the tracks stop short of 2 minutes. And, in all likelihood, you probably spent as much time trying to listen to Have One On Me by Joanna Newsom as you would on this album. Though not everybody likes electronic music, or even like spending so much time on a single album, people that enjoy testing their patience and really want to invest into an album will enjoy O.

Innundir Skinni - Olof Arnalds
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

You could blame Bjork, or Sigur Ros, but for whatever reason I just happen to love music that comes out of Iceland. Whether it is their accent when singing in English, the beautiful Icelandic language, the charming quirkiness of the musicians, or just my own fascination with the country, I can't help but enjoy Olof Arnalds. Without the crutch of understanding the lyrics, the appeal of Innundir Skinni relies solely on the warmth the music evokes, Olof Arnalds' voice, and the impeccable songcraft. Though the songs present themselves as common little folk songs, the wide and surprisingly diverse instrumentation provide plenty of surprises.

Tomorrow Is Alright - Sonny & The Sunsets
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

Every once in a while, you might discover a sneaking feeling that you'd just like to return to another time. Sonny & the Sunsets manage to encapsulate that feeling in Tomorrow Is Alright, immediately reminiscent of an earlier era but never a direct homage to any one influence. And what's more, the songs feature delightfully absurd narratives, but even in the face of women on a strange planet that enslave men, Sonny & the Sunsets make their music feel completely effortless.

oOoOO EP - oOoOO
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire

There isn't much for me to say about this EP. I am no expert in the kind of music oOoOO makes, nor do I have any real physical reason why I enjoyed this EP. Though there is definitely something eery in the music and even the album cover, it is still surprisingly accessible. Not to mention, "Hearts" might actually be one of my favorite songs of the year.

I think that is all I can write about for now. This cold is making me sleepy.

p.0

2010-12-21T13:35:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite parts of the end of the year is all the Best Of music lists. Though I have attempted my own lists in the past, I really hadn't planned on making one this year. Any album I have listened to has either been heard in the first six months of the year or in the last week; I hardly feel prepared to write about any of it. But because I have been on a music binge and I am currently battling a cold (and therefore have nothing else to do), I will attempt my own little year-end music wrap up. I can hardly call it a "best of" anything, since I plan on putting up all the albums I have enjoyed this year, which numbers over 100 albums. And, since I am in such a great mood for it, I will temporarily post links to download the albums for free, though all those links will be taken down within the first two weeks of the new year (or maybe not at all, I can be kind of lazy like that).

It should also be noted that not all of the albums may be to your liking. There are a lot of different albums, and they are not necessarily all instantly likable.

when did we start the end

2010-12-15T13:59:00.000-08:00

As I rode the bus home yesterday, realizing that there was very little keeping me from leaving the front door anymore, it dawned on me that it has been a long time since I had bothered to think in first person. The last half of the year has been an exercise in removing me from myself, so that I couldn't even write without pretending to be someone else.

Anyone can clearly see that this 365 project has ended long before I started writing its ending, but it deserved a clear ending all the same. And though the project is not completed, I wouldn't call it an entire waste. It was a good occupation of time that might have otherwise been spent on dwelling on everything that went wrong this year (and a lot went wrong this year).

I could list the regular excuses, like the fact that I am perpetually doomed with all computer hardware, having to go through disaster after disaster with an old external hard drive. Or the mishap with my headphones, in which I just snapped them in half because I was a nervous wreck again. But the project wasn't ever really about having to trudge through album after album, or trying to complete it within the timeframe I gave myself. I started the project because I just wanted to slip into someone else's world for just a moment.

There is really only one way to describe the year that I had: light and dark. During the white light of winter and spring, I spent my days with the best and closest friend I had made in years, and in the yellow light of summer and fall I had the comfort of family, repairing a relationship that had spent the last four years languishing. But there were so many nights when I suffered through panic attacks alone, clutching a telephone but terrified to dial. There were a lot of closed doors, shut curtains, crying in the shower, and screaming in bed until I felt like someone had scratched their nails across my throat.

The year finally came together when I finally figured out what was "wrong" with me: I am an agoraphobic, and I have PMDD. When I finally figured these things out about me, I felt as if my life had suddenly realigned and everything I had done up to this point suddenly made sense. And a part of me kind of expected the self-diagnosis to be like a veil that was lifted off of my life, and that everything I had messed up in the last year would suddenly turn out to all just be a test, and everyone who had ever thought I was just some lazy, awful person would have to apologize to me and admit that they were wrong about me, but ultimately it all turned out to be very This Person by Miranda July, in which I still ended up drawing a bath and laying in bed reading Sylvia Plath and pretending I hadn't just missed the chance to be loved by everyone.

I have only one plan for 2011. I will get diagnosed for agoraphobia, I will be reinstated into UW, I will take treatment for my illnesses, I will learn Chinese, and I'll get my financial aid back. Of course there are smaller goals (like finishing all the albums on my list), but for once in my life I feel prepared for the fact that my life isn't perfect, that I am not normal and I do not always handle things the way a responsible person would.

everything was beautiful and nothing hurt

2010-11-17T12:17:00.000-08:00

At night I watch my breath disappear into thin air, and a small part of me wonders if we're even breathing the same air anymore. I try to remember that you exist. I can't rationalize your existence by my memories, which are fickle, unreliable things that change shape right underneath my fingertips. I'm relying on physics, on thermal equilibrium more precisely. Because I know that a body creates heat, which raises the temperature of all the objects surrounding it.

And I think to myself, if you didn't still exist, the world would be a much colder place. Wouldn't it?

It was around Thanksgiving when I thought I lost you. It snowed heavily in early November, which never happens in Bellevue. And I remember numb toes and fingers and how you let me just walk away and I almost got hit by a car on the way home because I couldn't believe you didn't care about me anymore and I couldn't warm up even when I was indoors because the world just felt so cold.

"Hey, I'm around."

I still get emails from you. But if I ever faced you, I don't think it would make any of this any more real. Because I've looked into your eyes and seen that you have no love for me, and I felt all the heat in the world extinguish.

But the world isn't so cold now. And I know that I'm not going to die alone.

live on coffee and flowers

2010-11-11T13:03:00.000-08:00

These days there are no more deep thoughts.

I think about school, and how if I get a second chance I would do things differently. I think about the situational difference between 正好 and 原来. I focus on the patterns in the curtains and the smell of calcium in the shower head that reminds me of garden hoses and summer.

Sylvia sits at my desk at night. She reminds me of evolution as she tells me to just bite down until "the darkness wipes me out like chalk on a blackboard."

I am Lady Lazarus.
"Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air."

I'm going to get better.

only in dreams

2010-10-10T11:35:00.000-07:00

Only in dreams can I venture into the city and feel at home. Only in dreams can I visit the epicenters of my childhood. Only in dreams do you ever hold me tightly enough.

You could curse Norway for stealing your oldest friend, you could dream of Iceland, you could pray the book is right now in the backseat of a car headed towards Massachusetts.

You could be happy.

But you couldn't be happy. You sat in the closet they called an "office", you lifted your shirt over your back and let middle-aged women needing a big break to argue whether or not those scars looked like cigarette burns. You ran from the guidance counselor, screaming. You couldn't just stop trying, you had to preemptively destroy your life before anyone else could take it away from you.

Only in dreams do I ever feel your fears. Only in dreams do you admit to the desire to own a city in your heart, to be adventurous and happy, to never be lost and never be scared. Only in dreams do you ever revisit the places of your childhood, the childhood you denied ever happened, the childhood you wouldn't accept because it wasn't perfect enough. Only in dreams do you ever let him put his arms around you, instead of pushing him to the ground and crying.

I'm holding onto this life so desperately I think I'm destroying myself.

I erased an entire building and everyone died

2010-09-18T22:21:00.000-07:00

I slammed my head into the floor today and understood why birds fly into buildings and why moths fly into light bulbs and why the day my sister and I had an argument I can't even remember anymore she threw the radio to the floor and then ran straight into a wall, and why sometimes people sit in a bathtub and beat their head against the porcelain and scream.

The bump on my head hurts every time I laugh or move an eyebrow, but I am reminded of that final moment of peace, when all of my synapses finally stopped screaming for the serotonin I guess they are so desperately lacking.

Sometimes I dream about pushing you out of a plane, sometimes I erase whole buildings and streets and civilizations are wiped out by a single rub from an eraser. Sometimes I scratch at my skin, picking off the bumps that were once a secret braille between you and me.

There are dead flies in the water glasses, and I probably bled on the mushrooms. The ants are finding their way up the staircase and the floor hasn't been cleaned in years. If anyone came into this house they might think that no one lives here anymore. And I don't think anyone that does wants to anyway.

The Sylvia Plath Effect

2010-09-16T15:44:00.000-07:00

You know that they call this "The Sylvia Plath Effect".

I suppose laying in bed, thinking about elbows and our mothers or our terrifying, unknowable fathers, and being more creative than an eggshell makes us Lady Lazarus.

The answer might be different if it were London, or anywhere in California, or more likely Paris. Someplace with more trees and less rain. Award-winning, urbane, we contemplate candles and the pattern in the tablecloth, childhood homes and porcelain bathtubs. The answer will never be different.

They tell me this is the Sylvia Plath Effect. I'd leave a thousand pages unwritten if I never had to feel this again.

Okay...

2010-07-15T21:19:00.000-07:00

So, I really thought that I'd get another review done today. I mean, yes, I admit to dropping the ball and deciding to watch Merlin on Netflix with my mom as soon as I woke up. And then maybe when my sister came home we went jogging, and of course I had to take a shower. And eat dinner. And now it's 9 o'clock, and I really don't want to use my brain.

You might expect that the bare minimum for today would probably be another really depressing post about something in my life, where I don't actually go into detail, but just sort of whine about it for several paragraphs. But to be honest, I'm really not feeling it. Not only do I not want to sit around and make myself depressed just so I can write something, but to a certain extent, I'd like to think that these sad things are behind me, and that I can look forward to something new and depressing in the future to write about.

If you're still reading, by now you've probably realized I am not actually going to post anything worthwhile. You can probably stop reading now.

If I Could Just Leave My Body For A Night

2010-07-14T19:42:00.000-07:00

Merriweather Post Pavilion by Animal Collective

Insound

Certain albums simply define entire periods of a person's life. For me, 2007 was largely devoted to Of Montreal's amazing Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?, while 2006 was Minus the Bear's entire discography up to that year. For most of 2009, I hadn't really listened to much music until I finally listened to Merriweather Post Pavilion. This probably isn't uncommon for most people. As one of the best-received album in years (they got a 9.6 on Pitchfork, for goodness sake), most people are at the very least aware of Animal Collective, and even more have strong opinions about them (Because of this, it's almost embarrassing to seriously attempt a review of it).

I started listening to Animal Collective years before I heard "My Girls" for the first time, after hearing "Chores" and "Fireworks". Even though I liked them, I tend to enjoy music for only short cycles, and soon enough I had forgotten about Animal Collective. The next time I heard Animal Collective, I was in a cafe working when "My Girls" came on the radio. It may have been the extremely shitty stereo, or it may have been the unbearable heat and frustrating customers (this particular cafe is located by a Gene Juarez salon, whose hair stylists would be almost likable if they weren't uppity-snobs that never ever tip), but I absolutely hated what I heard. I spent several months completely ignoring the album, which wasn't hard to do when my computer crashed and all my music disappeared.

At some point in the year, however, my stubbornness was finally broken when I realized I wasn't finding any good music to listen to on my own. I no longer had people recommending me music to listen to, and it had been such a long time since I had looked up music on a site like Elbo.ws or Hype Machine that I really didn't know where to start. Well aware of the fact that most albums I hate I eventually love, I turned to Merriweather Post Pavilion.

I'd rather not try to go through each song and pick it apart, lyric by lyric, simply because I realize how long this post has already become (and also because I am itching to just get distracted and procrastinate on publishing this yet again). Anyone familiar with any Animal Collective song knows that there is rarely a clear narrative to any song. Much of the vocals are lost in reverbs, noise, and sometimes just complete vocal distortions so as to render any word incomprehensible. Instead, songs center around a general feeling or event which may only become evident after sitting down carefully with a pair of good headphones and the lyrics next to you. Even so, there are few bands that can capture a single emotion as keenly as Animal Collective.

Sun Bronzed Greek Gods

2010-07-13T21:43:00.000-07:00

I'm literally sitting six drafts right now for this blog. Over the past two months, I've actually been wanting to write. And I happen to have some good ideas too. Each post is tagged with clear labels, each one has a carefully picked out title. Some even have their introductions written. And at some point in the middle of the post, my brain goes "Fuck it, let's check Hark, a Vagrant and then go bake something and then fall asleep." This type of thing usually happens with every blog I write ever, and I very nearly have to chain myself to the desk in order to finish anything. That's why, if anyone actually has talked to me while I am blogging, I average 4 to 6 hours per blog post (try to imagine how long it takes to write an essay).

There are people who probably wonder what I've actually been doing, if I haven't been listening to music or writing (namely, concerned friends that haven't seen me in about three months and only get sporadic emails). And the truth will probably piss people off, because there are people with actual problems in their life, that are actually working and doing things. But here it is: I've been watching 24 all day everyday. It wasn't exactly my idea, though. My sister came home towards the start of summer vacation and informed us we could use her laptop to watch shows online from her boyfriend's Netflix account. Since the start of the summer, my mom and I have watched all four seasons of Prison Break, the entire season of Glee, a season of Buffy, and the first five seasons of 24, among other shows.

To counteract the severe laziness of my summer, I've been jogging with my sister, sometimes twice a day (she wakes up at 6:30 and jogs). And at some point in my past, I was actually a pretty good runner and was somewhat athletic, but in the last three or four years I think my muscles have literally degenerated and atrophied. My sister, on the other hand, has been exercising continuously for years. Watching my sister and I jog together, you would think that I was dying, or at the very least about to fall down at any moment (two giant scars on my knees do nothing to build confidence that I won't eventually fall down).

Now that my mom has caught up with 24 — she started watching 24 during the sixth season — she has completely lost interest in watching anything, which means she no longer comes into my study room and commandeers my computer. I can now continue watching 24 at my own discretion, which means I have an opportunity to cut down on the amount of time watching television and increase the amount of time spent blogging and listening to music.

Though the six drafts I have backed up are vaguely interesting to me, I've reached the point in my summer where I feel capable of being less than depressing. I don't think I have the ability to write about happy subjects in as good a manner as the sadder things that I write, but at this point I am a little less interested with trying so hard and a little more concerned with just writing reviews and getting back into the rhythm of writing everyday.

If I want to have any chance at accomplishing this 365 project, I'll have to start writing a review at least once a day, if not more. I'm not exactly used to writing more than once, or even to just sit down and finish a single blog post without getting up and distracting myself, so I will probably write more posts like this until then, just to practice being long-winded.

For the longest time I found myself unable to share anything, namely because I woke up one day to find out that my mom had read some of the things I had written that wasn't actually meant to be read by her. I felt really awful, because I can say and write the worst possible things sometimes, and it didn't help very much when she shouted, "You're evil!". That single event was resolved very quickly however, because my mom was kind enough to tell me that even though she read those things a while ago, she loved me anyways and it didn't change that at all. Even so, the whole situation made me self-conscious about the things I share and the way I think. I didn't even really want to write here anymore, and was about to delete the blog altogether. But I know at this point most of my readers have very little faith in me, so I am pretty okay with spilling my guts again!

Hey Listen World, I've Had Enough!

2010-07-12T14:38:00.001-07:00

I thought that I would give up on my project, particularly because of the months I have taken off because I didn't (or sometimes couldn't) listen to any music. But as I was writing a statement explaining my decision to change it from a project to simply a wishlist of albums I will eventually listen to and cross off my list, I felt incredibly sad. Maybe I have a habit of starting more projects than I can finish, and I may not have the commitment to see many of those projects through, but the 365 project was one of the few things that I really looked forward to for the first quarter of the year. The last two months I have not even thought about music, but now that I finally find myself wanting to hear music again, I suddenly feel like it would be such a waste to give up now. I have five more months ahead of me, or more specifically, 188 albums to review in 176 days.

So, I might as well get started.

Nine Times That Same Song by Love is All

Insound

I started falling in love with music because of the freedom it gave me. My family is incredibly tight-knit; growing up, my mom tried to force my sister and I to be as close as conjoined twins. As a whole our family acts like a collection of reclusive people, so desperately alone that we cling to each other for dear life. I grew up sitting on an old orange couch, listening to old school hip hop and pop music from the 90s my sister liked on the radio. And that music simply never moved me.

I started listening to rock music by happenstance, and it was amazing the personal space bands like Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana afforded me. For the next several years, music was an active assault on the limits of my life, and had a very physical presence in my rebellion against my parents. If I lied, had "attitude", or fought with them in any way, their immediate and swift punishment was to take my music privileges away. They believed that music would play only a small part in my life, a stage I'd eventually grow out of.

Unfortunately for my parents, the passion for music never really went away. When I turned to indie music in 2006, I immediately gravitated towards loud, forceful music that would drive my family away. I started listening to Love is All precisely for that reason: Josephine Olausson's half-shouting, Markus Görsh's driving drums, and even (sometimes especially) Fredrick Eriksson's frenetic saxophone. Between "Talk Talk Talk Talk" and "Trying Too Hard", Nine Times That Same Song is fast-paced, frustration-fused songs about love, watching too much television, aging, and trying too hard. For people like me that may or may not rely too heavily on lyrics to derive meanings, it may be frustrating to find that Love is All sometimes buries its lyrics through a fog of reverb and accented vocals (made worse when compounded by the fact that I can't even find lyrics online for half of the songs on the album).

After a while, that frustration with my parents and my lack of privacy eventually died away, and my music tastes became a bit more reasonable. I still seek space when listening to music, because I simply don't want to be accessible to people. A lot of bands have fallen by the wayside due to this shift, particularly Love is All. When I had finally realized I didn't need noise to build walls from the people that cared about me (my rotten disposition is good enough to accomplish that), I turned to twee and pop music. It took me a long time to find my way back to anything remotely "noisy", beginning with Animal Collective and burgeoning from there. It took a long time to find my way back to Love is All, which I needed yesterday morning to drown out the sound of my parents yelling.

I never really appreciated Nine Times That Same Song when I first listened to it, namely because I heard it for the sound. Of course, the sometimes angry-as-hornets sound is important in defining the album, as it expresses general frustration but also wound-up anticipation for life to get started. The album is, to a degree, rooted in real life events in the band members' lives, but it largely conveys sentiments: particularly, the album explores themes of love, apathy towards life vs. a hunger for something bigger, and generally trying too hard and still doing things that you realize probably weren't the best idea. There is an impressive presence of balance on the album, balancing frantic noise with melodies and pop hooks, as well as balancing all that energetic sound with lulls (just listen to the difference between "Spinning & Scratching" and "Turn the TV Off").

And luckily enough, if you happen to like Nine Times That Same Song, Love is All manages to keep from disappointing in A Hundred Things Keep Me Up At Night and Two Thousand And Ten Injuries (they kinda seem to have a thing for numbers, don't you think?).

have a heart, have a heart, have a heart

2010-07-10T22:42:00.000-07:00

I store my life in the oddest of places. I kept my 9th grade in two cabinets at the bottom of the dresser in my room. 11th grade is directly on top of 8th, though it's mostly dust and ungifted scented candles. 10th grade I left behind in the corner classroom with my favorite teacher. 18 I think I left in the passenger seat of your car, along with my green plaid scarf and the camera you said was mine.

The day you called, I left that day on the Burke-Gilman trail at the University. I left last summer on the 520, spending so many hours stalled in traffic. I left the holiday season in Cafe Habits, where I worked for free because I thought you needed me (I left in a hurry when I realized you didn't). Freshman year is stretched between the Henry Art Gallery and McMahon.

The trouble is, I'm running out of places to go in this city. The reality is, I'll never go back to those days. The buildings of Bellevue and Seattle stand like the ruined temples of Chichen Itza. This is a city of dead memories and people I used to know. Let's just get out of the country.

please please please put me out

2010-07-08T23:48:00.000-07:00

You make me tired of apologies. I'm tired of saying them, you're tired of hearing them. I'm tired of forgiving people who won't forgive me. I'm tired of keeping everyone at arm's length, of trying to convince everyone to keep their dead mouths from accosting me.

I look at everyone around me, and I wonder why we ever allowed each other to grow up. Why did I ever let you stop telling me stories, why did we start worrying about the shape of our bodies and the types of clothes we wore? Why did we ever allow ourselves to repeat our parents' mistakes?

If there was ever a place and a time when we could just stop, I'd peel away your scars like old bandages. We'd build a fort between our beds, we'd lay our legs under your mattress, we'd take the dollhouse out of the closet and invent stories again.

But we are grown up. And I am sorry for that.

Triangle Walks

2010-07-04T21:10:00.000-07:00

I remembered you yesterday, in the backseat of the car as the 550 passed us by. I remembered there's still evidence of you, buried under the unfinished game of Battleship, which I took down from the closet for us to play. I remembered the letters I tossed out of the old wooden box, nondescript details of some nondescript day when you were still here. I remembered the perfectly curled downy feather from your uncle's funeral, the one that means goodbye (why were we always practicing how to say goodbye?).

I threw out the bottle of vanilla extract yesterday. The wheat flour is still in the cupboard, but it will be gone soon, too. The game of Battleship will eventually find its way back to the closet, the letters will disappear in some dark corner I won't bother trying to reach. The feather will just be a feather.

You might not answer my calls because you might not care anymore. I might still find myself saying "I hate you" with less and less conviction and more habit. I might forget your smile lines and the exact shade of your eyes. I might forget what your hair felt like, or the whiskers on your chin. I won't remember the crook of your elbow as it hit me across the chest that night I realized you'd rather go out of the country than stay by my side. The evidence will be gone, and this house will be buried, these bones will break, and in the end all I can think is, were you ever really here?

Friday I'm In Love

2010-07-02T20:07:00.000-07:00

These are the days when I am supposed to smile. You take my hand and lead me out to the sun, you cup my chin and turn my eyes to the clouds. And these are the moments when I no longer can cry. These are the days when there is no dark, no corners, no covers. Bare legs, short sleeves, hair tied up.

I should try to climb that rock wall. I should try to take care of flowers like tender, thirsty children. This is when I should cup bumblebees in my hand, chase crane flies. I should be examining the asparagus patch, tasting the sweet tang of the strawberries and eying the blackberries.

Instead I am waiting for the guillotine to finally fall.

Setbacks

2010-06-21T17:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was perusing my music folder, when I realized all of my music after L has disappeared. Half of my music library has completely disappeared, and cannot be recovered. Which is unfortunate, considering the fact that I have finally gotten to the point where I want to listen to music again.

Anyways, the likelihood that I will be able to finish my project this year is extremely small.

Oh Raquel

2010-06-03T23:23:00.001-07:00

Not to be kind of terrible, but last weekend I somehow got it into my head that it would be a wonderful idea to switch computers. So I disconnected everything and ended up lugging three computers all over the house. And then there were the million little technical hiccups (getting the wireless set up alone was an absolute horror). I'm still getting used to this new computer, but suffice it to say I am both parts pleased and frustrated with the outcome. And, as I still have to look through 23,000+ files under the folder titled "Music" (because seriously, that folder needs a little bit of organizing), I hesitate to even think about what that means for my 365 project.

But, if I go one more day without writing anything whatsoever, I will probably go insane. So, I have gratuitously replaced a hard to find album with something that I have been listening to lately. Call it cheating if you will, I call it an attempt to get back on the horse.

Has A Good Home by Final Fantasy

Insound

This may seem like an odd choice to anyone but me. Granted, Has A Good Home is pleasant and has its "moments", but of Pallett's three albums, this is undeniably his weakest. But I can't help my choice when this is the only good thing to happen to me musically since dancing to The Contours "Do You Love Me" over a week ago. In fact, many of the albums I enjoyed just a month ago I suddenly can't stand at all, so there really was no choice whatsoever.

Frustratingly enough, this album has generally been reduced simply to its quirks. The music in most reviews has been largely ignored or brushed aside, instead replaced with details about Owen Pallett and the making of the album. Because we all know that the defining characteristics of Has a Good Home has absolutely no basis on the music itself, which we will inattentively dismiss as "good, but not groundbreaking", but in the name-dropping of past projects Pallett was involved with.

If in an interview, Pallett describes himself as a misanthrope, or pointedly states "Musicians are humans", it's absolutely no wonder. Of course, background information may give some illumination towards understanding an album, but it shouldn't overshadow or define the album itself. Getting hung up on the concept of an album rather than hearing the music itself is just plain shameful.

As for the album itself, there are sixteen tracks and lasts about 45 minutes. The album opens with "None of You Will Ever See A Penny", depicting a man on his deathbed regretting his "ill-begotten wealth", singing to his heir, "I wish, I wish for you a lifetime of labor / Hard days make peaceful nights". The most famous track on the album is, of course, "(This Is) The Dream of Win and Regine", though it is not the only highlight of the album. As a whole, the album makes genial pop songs about love, among other things.

Personally, I can't help but enjoy Has A Good Home. It's relaxing, and there are few things more pleasant than listening to this album really loud while walking around campus. I'd much rather listen to Pallett sing "Hey yo yo yo yo yo / I need an empire to overthrow / You make me wish for a more dangerous life / So I can show you 'bout self sacrifice" than hear anything anyone else is saying around me into their iPhones.

Though to anyone else, this album is somewhat lackluster and ordinary, in the words of Owen Pallett himself: "I don’t want people listening that are going to be that unwilling to engage in the music. In the same way, I feel like listeners, because there’s so much music out there, have stopped considering that the people who make music are living, working human beings, and as a result people ascribe a hierarchy to their music collections, and if somebody makes an album that’s worse or doesn’t sound the way somebody else’s sounds, they call it a mistake. That’s wrong, you know. Every artist listens to an album hundreds of times before they release it. I hope that people start realizing that musicians are actually groups of people who are making incredibly well-thought-out decisions."

Happy June!

2010-06-01T17:50:00.000-07:00

So here is my obligatory, once-a-month apology for being a slacker. But today I mean this more than I have for other months.

If an explanation must be had, it may be as simple as this: I was exhausted. I couldn't listen to music without thinking, Do I have to write about this later?. I couldn't think about typing anything that would be meaningful at all, because I felt as if I had lost all meaning. By the tail end of the month, I was bedridden with a frustratingly persistant cold, spending four full days just lounging about trying to breathe.

As the days passed, I seriously began to question the point of this 365. It suddenly occurred to me that I am tired of keeping track of my days. I honestly don't want to feel them passing by, or adding up. My days became lined with anxiety.

As for music itself, it took a long time to make listening to music stop feeling like a chore. My listening habits were slowly devolving; I kept going back to the same albums, which eventually degenerated to single songs. And then, because I couldn't even handle that complexity, I turned to 1960s music. I went back to a time when songwriters didn't care about being cheesy, and there was a general good-feeling emanating from the majority of songs. And, because of the times, there was also anxiety-ridden, angry songs, like Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son". Eventually, I just didn't listen to music at all.

Though I hate being sick, I can't help but feel thankful for being forced to not doing anything. I could stay off the computer, and not remind myself about all the albums I was supposed to write about that day. I didn't have to go out of the house, where my iPod's headphone cord would bother me like a thick black noose, daring me to be alone with my own thoughts, knowing I would never manage that.

I have come out of the cold and out of my funk, and am ready to write about albums yet again. But, I hope to change the way that I write about them. I want to consciously stop trying to describe what the albums sound like, and focus on meanings and focus on why I connect to the albums, because that interests me infinitely more than looking up synonyms for "enjoyable".

Shelia

2010-05-07T23:36:00.000-07:00

At night, fingers wrapped around that fragile cord, I whispered lyrics laced with my secrets into your ear. The night you came home, I couldn't find any other way to say it. "We will grow old", I sung, "and when we die, we'll bury ourselves, 'cause no one wants to die alone". And then I hung my head in my hands and cried.

I loved "Shelia". I promised to grow old, to share my life, to die alone together. What could be better than having that "familiar kind of love, like when married couples stop having sex or something"?

When you came home that night, I cried, because if you had died, I would have been alone. I sit on the park bench, watching the rain pattern the pages of my book, and I know that I'm going to die alone.

I'm Not The Dark Center of the Universe, Like You Thought

2010-05-06T22:41:00.000-07:00

This "Rumble in the Jungle" has finally finished. We've gone our eight rounds. I've been stuck on the ropes, I've been doing the rope-a-dope. I'm walking away tonight, but it hardly feels like a victory.

I tally up the punches we've exchanged, and neither of us are innocent.

I'm not the dark center of the universe like you thought. But, I have to admit, neither are you.

I would say, I only ever wanted good things for you, but you wouldn't believe me. I would say, I tried to bury pennies underneath your window frame, but you wouldn't look. I would say, please forgive me, but you won't.

After all this, I'm still hoping we'll stay friends. But you're no Foreman, and I'm no Ali. We've only walked away from this injured.

Pull Up The People

2010-05-06T19:57:00.000-07:00

Arular by M.I.A.

Insound

Odds are, everyone reading this has heard of M.I.A., and they likely have a very strong opinion of her. Because she blends so many different genres in her music, and her voice is very unique, M.I.A. tends to have very ardent supporters and very ardent critics. I have very little qualms in admitting I am not a fan of M.I.A. I'm not a critic, either, however. Hearing the occasional M.I.A. track on the radio, I really felt very passive towards her music. This passivity has persisted to this day, primarily because I was never truly interested in learning much more about her music.

It seems that it is necessary to know a few things before digging into any music by M.I.A. First, a lot of her music is autobiographical. Therefore, knowing about her is a necessity to understand some of the lyrical brilliance behind her seemingly innocuous dance songs.The album name is actually M.I.A.'s father's revolutionary name, who was part of a Tamil military group in Sri Lanka.

The album starts off with "Banana Skit", a short 30 second clip brought about by M.I.A.'s experience learning English. From there the album launches into "Pull Up The People" and "Bucky Done Gun", in which M.I.A. asserts that she has "got the bombs to make you blow/[she] got the beats to make you bang bang bang". Throughout the album, there is a liberal use of political subtext to all of the songs, ranging from prostitution, terrorism and Stockholm Syndrome.

Though I still don't listen to M.I.A. very much, I do recommend the album. There is enough substance to the album that it is enjoyable to think about, and it is danceable enough that if you become tired of thinking, you can just dance along to it.

Passive Neurotic Aggression

2010-05-05T17:40:00.000-07:00

Haunt Me, Haunt Me, Do It Again by Tim Hecker

Insound

I originally chose this album because I was in the mood for some artsy music. Or at least, when I was sitting outside in the sun, listening to "Romeo" by Basement Jaxx, the thought struck me that I've been dipping too far into the more accessible stuff from my 365 list, and it's been a while since I stretched the limits of my musical tolerance.

Starting out, I'd never heard of Tim Hecker before, and actually chose his albums to put on the list based on this album's title (it brought a smile to my lips, and I figured it couldn't be that bad) as stuff to fill it out. So I won't hesitate at all to admit that when it comes to ambient drone, or abstract electronic music (or whatever you want to classify this as), I am absolutely no expert.

Haunt Me, Haunt Me, Do It Again can be described as almost cinematic, and indeed some of the track titles (like "Music For Tundra") seem to lend to this idea. The album spans 20 tracks (with actually 9 central songs that are stretched over multiple tracks) and lasts for nearly an hour, and from the beginning it is clear that this is an album meant to be heard in its entirety.

The album opens with "Music For Tundra", which is stretched over three tracks, in which we are introduced to the style throughout the album: that of rolling undercurrents of drone and buzz, with unpredictable cuts of noise. The album seems almost to grab onto an emotional current and is pulled along through those 20 tracks, exploring the depths of that emotion almost like one would explore a conceptual idea.

"The Work of Art In The Age of Cultural Overproduction" is by far the standout track. The title itself is a reference to an essay titled "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" written by Walter Benjamin in 1935. Whereas most other tracks are either a practice of distance, alienation and loneliness, or a practice of depth, invitation and warmth (as much as it can be applied to ambient drone), "The Work of Art In The Age of Cultural Overproduction" is neither; 7 minutes long, the song is surprisingly tense and forceful. When the song gives way to "October", it is almost a welcome reprieve from the stirring yet sparse noises (and strangely, even though the song is seven minutes long, it almost manages to feel as if it is over too soon). From there, the second half of the album lends itself over less to static and more to synths, and almost seems to transcend into some kind of starry romanticism (even the song titles suggest this, with "Boreal Kiss" and "Night Flight To Your Heart").

Though the album presents itself as almost alien and strange, Haunt Me, Haunt Me, Do It Again manages to be beautiful and patient. The album is highly rewarding, and though it is to some extent haunting, the album invites you in to be haunted again and again.

Help!

2010-05-04T22:52:00.000-07:00

"When I was young, so much younger than today / I never needed anybody's help in any way / But now these days are gone, I'm not so self assured / Now I find I've changed my mind, I've opened up the doors" — "Help" by The Beatles, Help!

I've been silent lately. Every word has failed me thus far.

Everyday I live with the stigma of being myself.

"You are sad."
"You are too negative."
"You are thinking wrong."
"You are pure evil inside."

In my life, there is no discussion. There is no understanding, forgiveness, patience. I am Amanda, I am sad, negative, wrong, evil. My throat reluctantly swallows this bitterness, then resigns itself to never open again.

I don't have to defend myself. To love someone is to be vulnerable, and I am utterly defenseless. The only words I ever use is a plaintive, "I love you", and it is truly amusing how this supposedly meaningful phrase becomes so absolutely meaningless in your ears.

I stand here, the unnamed sister in The Twelve Brothers, on the pyre, unable to defend myself. I am Faithful John, whose good deeds are misinterpreted, incapable of explanation lest I be turned to stone. The Brothers Grimm understood this kind of defenselessness.

I've never known how to ask for help. Help me if you can, I'm feeling down, and I do appreciate you being around. Help me get my feet back on the ground. Won't you please, please help me?

Didn't Want To Be Your Ghost

2010-05-03T19:18:00.000-07:00

I Am A Bird Now by Antony and the Johnsons

Insound

I've been listening to this album for the past couple of weeks now, and was puzzling over how exactly I should start it. When I first listened to Antony and the Johnsons, I had somehow stumbled on "Fistful of Love" on some random blog in 2005, and one night laying awake with my CD player (I didn't get my first iPod until 2007), I fell asleep mistakenly believing "Fistful of Love" was some sentimental love song, and no deeper than that. When I attempted to listen to I Am A Bird Now, I found the subject of gender confusion something I was incapable of understanding or even wanting to spend time to understand. And so for many years, Antony and the Johnson was only "Fistful of Love", and that song by itself was misunderstood.

The album opens with "Hope There's Someone", opening the album on a note of loneliness, in which the singer finds himself incapable of going to sleep at night for fear of dying in his sleep. This fear of "the middle place/between light and nowhere" could be assuaged if only there was "someone who'll take care of [him]". "My Lady Story", on the other hand, describes a body devastated by cancer, singing, "My lady story/Is one of annihilation". Here, the singer feels as if their body is broken, singing, "My womb's an ocean full/of grief, then rage/And still you're coaxing me/To come on out and live/Well, I'm a crippled dog/I've got nothing to give/I'm so broken, babe". "For Today I Am a Boy" has surprisingly simple lyrics, and poses as a song from the perspective of a hermaphroditic child, who sings "One day I'll grow up, I'll be a beautiful woman", later elaborating to "One day I'll grow up, I'll feel the power in me", but sadly sings "But for today I am a child, for today I am a boy". "You Are My Sister" is truly touching, opening with the lines "You are my sister, we were born/So innocent, so full of need". The singer describes their relationship, in which he "was so afraid of the night/You seemed to move through the places that I feared", and expresses a feeling of living inside their own world ("You lived inside my world so softly" and "But there's nothing left to gain from remembering/Faces and worlds that no one else will ever know"). The song ends with the sincere lines, "You are my sister/And I love you/May all your dreams come true/I want this for you". "Fistful of Love", which presents itself as a very innocuous love song, describes the relationship burdened by domestic violence, in which the person sings, "I tell you I love you/And I always will/And I know that you can't tell me/So I'm left to pick up/The hints, the little symbols of your devotion", finally singing "I accept and I collect upon my body/The memories of your devotion". The album ends with "Bird Gerhl", in which the singer has resolved all of their troubles, singing "I've got my heart here in my hands now/I've been searching for my wings some time", and feels that everything will be fine "'Cause I'm a bird girl, and bird girls go to heaven".

Though the album explores many themes (mostly that of gender ambiguity), the album is tied together with an overarching expression of trying to find love, even in the hardest moments. The album expresses a desire for someone to be there when you are at your weakest, when your body, your identity, or your situation is not what you might have wished for. If, when listening to the album, you focus on only the gender confusion aspect of the album, you are sadly oversimplifying it. Though Antony chooses a different aspect of struggling to explore the themes of identity, loneliness, death and love, the themes itself and the outcome of the album is accessible to everyone.

Better Sell It While You Can

2010-05-02T22:30:00.000-07:00

Fever to Tell by Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Insound

It was on some night, probably near 11:11 PM when I first heard "Maps" playing on the radio. It wasn't just "Maps", though, it was an acoustic version that bled immediately into an extremely subdued "Y Control". With Karen O's beautifully emotive voice (cracking at times as if the emotion was more than her voice could handle), it was hard for a 13 year old girl who was convinced she was in love to resist.

When I finally got on a computer and really learned how to use the internet, I tried listening to Fever to Tell, believing it to sound like "Maps". In fact, the first half of the album was so noisy I couldn't even get through it, and I didn't listen to the album ever again. Songs like "Tick" seemed almost juvenile, and through the years I brushed off Yeah Yeah Yeahs as mostly a rock 'n' roll band only young girls could love.

Sitting through it again, the "noise" doesn't seem to bother me quite so much. It isn't even that noisy, and though it lasts for about half of the album, it passes by so quickly that it's almost over before you're aware of anything. Of course, the entire album is almost eclipsed by "Maps", which is so beautiful that it by itself makes the album.

As for being "juvenile", there are surprising moments (when they're not trying to imply incest like in "Cold Light" or making little yelps in "Black Tongue") when it feels truly honest, particularly in "Maps", "Y Control" and "Modern Romance". There are moments of lyrical brilliance, like on "No No No" in which Karen sings, "He'll always come back as the man you dropped/He'll never come back as the man you loved". "Y Control" also has a few moments of brilliance, when she sings "I wish I could buy back/The woman you stole", lamenting how she "believed them all". In "Modern Romance" is truly touching, never relying heavily on repetition of words or any yelping. Here Karen testifies that "there is no modern romance", and that time "stops who it wants" (eventually this line changes to time being able to "stop who he was").

Fever to Tell manages to be good not in any in depth sort of way, but it is enjoyable in the sense that it feels very carefree. The album passes by in a rush, lingering for a moment with "Maps", "Y Control" and "Modern Romance" before it breezily says good bye with "Yeah! New York"

There Isn't Much That I Feel I Need, A Solid Soul and the Blood I Bleed

2010-05-01T20:15:00.000-07:00

Ahhh, sorry folks!

I haven't been posting anything lately, but I promise to work harder this month! Summer is just around the corner, and there is a newer and happier me. But, just like Washington's weather, my moods seem to fluctuate erratically — one moment, I am beaming with excitement over the success of a tasty batch of cookies, the next minute I am grouchy and biting everyone's heads off, and then I start crying and fall into a depression, only to bounce right out of it happy and chipper again! No one knows what to expect anymore.

So I definitely felt as if I was in some type of music funk for the last month, but it's a brand new month and a new chance to work harder and get through this albums!

Happy May, everybody!

I'll Fall in Love With Anybody Once

2010-04-30T21:14:00.000-07:00

I found him under the slides, conspiring with his friend. I sat down, criss-cross applesauce, next to him on the carpet, waiting for story time to start. I was crying underneath the overhang when he walked past, he followed me home flipping me the bird, I was pushing him down in the playground, I was running into him on the bus, I was sitting across from him on the grass.

I knew once that if we both had the same M written in the lines of our palms, it was meant to be. I knew once that I could make anyone fall in love with me if only I could blow a dandelion puff out with just one breath. I knew once that you were in love with me.

Love you once, shame on you. Love you twice, shame on me.

When can I stop hating my own heart?

Gravity Rides Everything

2010-04-29T16:35:00.001-07:00

The Moon & Antarctica by Modest Mouse

Insound

Because it is my friend Cindy's birthday today, and her favorite band is Modest Mouse, I decided to review The Moon & Antarctica. I distinctly remember first hearing this album sitting on a lunch table out in the courtyard of our high school (my friends and I looking a lot like a collection of misfits).

I've never truly listened to this album; not that day in the courtyard and not when I was trying to force myself to review another album. In truth, I never really heard it at all until last night, sitting with the lyrics and nothing on my mind. The lovely guitar strumming opening of "3rd Planet" caught me wildly off guard, and the lyrics completely snapped me straight out of my musical funk.

The album is truly significant because of its beautiful lyrics, at once deep and introspective, but cloaked in what can now be called classic Isaac Brockisms (that is, wonderfully cryptic but poetic and mind-blowing). In fact, if I were to attempt to call attention to all of my favorite lines and all of my favorite songs, this review would become so long that it would look is if I only copied and pasted the lyrics here. If any generalizations can be used at all, the lyrics generally manage to be existential and deep, yet painfully personal.

If there is an overlying concept being explored in the album, it could easily be what they shout in "Tiny Cities Made of Ashes": "Does anybody know a way that a body could get away?" The album opens with "3rd Planet" and the feeling that "the universe is shaped exactly like the earth/If you go straight long enough you'll end up where you were". This feeling of being trapped is expounded in "Gravity Rides Everything", in which everything feels inescapable. The album explores the themes of feeling trapped and wanting to find a way of escaping that feeling. Even so, there is the problem of feeling alone; in "The Cold Part", Brock sings "I stepped down as the president of Antarctica/Can't blame me, don't blame me, don't/So long to this sad, sad part of this world".

For me, I have never had much of an opinion on what the "best" Modest Mouse sound has been; whether it is raw and powerful, like their earlier albums, introspective and moving like The Moon & Antarctica, or glossy pop like We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, I have never really felt either way about their sound. Singularly, The Moon & Antarctica stands by itself as a very beautiful album, and one of my favorites out of this project.

My Mom Puts Raisins In My Captain Crunch

2010-04-28T22:11:00.000-07:00

Today, I poured out my Captain Crunch and there were about twenty raisins from my sister's Raisin Bran in my bowl. Yuck.

In an attempt to rekindle whatever gusto I had when beginning this project, I watched Julie and Julia once again. I was reminded of the movie after reading about thirty pages of A Piece of Cake, a 500 page book on just cakes (there are over 380 recipes and entire chapters dedicated to real knowledge behind baking).

Even though it's been a very tough few months, I think it's important to remind myself that part of the reason I did this project was simply for the joy of discovering new music. I want to be more respectful in my future reviews, and to invest more time trying to understand them. There will be quite a few albums I will be reviewing again towards the end of the year, primarily those that I feel simply did not do enough. I always tell people that albums are meant to be understood, not brushed off, and here I am doing exactly what I chastise others for doing.

A third of my year has gone by, and I'm still struggling to find my voice. It almost feels as if I am starting all over again as a new writer, and so I am fairly certain that many of the next few reviews will be bumbling and cringe-worthy. But I am really going to try, and that makes all the difference to me.

And, a special happy birthday to Clemente, who turned 20 years old today!

No Excuses

2010-04-27T20:23:00.000-07:00

Girls Can Tell by Spoon

Insound

I started listening to Spoon in 2007, following the release of Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. Despite three years of exposure, I never really got into them. After a healthy dose of Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?, I was simply tired of everything I'd ever heard before. As 2007 drew to a close, I stopped listening to music altogether (and two computer crashes did not help at all). By the time I started listening to music again in 2009, I had already forgotten all about Spoon. It wasn't until I decided to listen to Spoon again late in the night (in order to get them off my list) did I begin to fall in love with Spoon again.

Aside from nodding your head along to the song (or singing, if you are daring), smiling, or grabbing your friends by their shirt collar and saying "Listen to this!", there's something incommunicable about Spoon's music. I could say they sound clean, I could say they sound simultaneously angry and refined, but it would fall short of what Girls Can Tell really sounds like. I could attribute the aggression in the album from their being dumped by their major label, but that would be shortchanging the emotional artistry in the album.

Rather than analyze lyrics song by song, I will briefly mention some of my favorite tracks. Few albums open as tensely as "Everything Hits at Once", and "Believing is Art" is a lovely follow up to this track. "Me and the Bean" is one of my favorites, particularly for the lines "Do you remember when you were small/How everybody would seemed so tall/I am your shadow in the dark/I have your blood inside my heart". "Fitted Shirt" is enjoyable simply because how many bands will dedicate an entire song to spelling out the grievances of one-size-fits-all shirts? The entire album is so full of hooks that it's hard to pick just a single favorite.

I feel like I've done a pretty bad job on this one, but considering I'm very out of practice, I'll stop here and call it good. At least I didn't redirect you to Pitchfork, right?

Be Kind To Me Or Treat Me Mean

2010-04-26T22:03:00.000-07:00

I've been useless. Like the one chipped plate in your dining set, like the one wilted rose in your anniversary bouquet (the one rose ruining your twelve month metaphor), like the one burnt light bulb darkening your chandelier.

In the last few days, I have been gathering my metaphors like homeless leaves, I have been tucking them way in the dark corners of my dresser, next to the high school I.D. with a suicide hotline on the back, with my mother's strand of pink plastic pearls (her favorite piece of jewelry, now with a broken clasp), the million dark treasures I can't bear to throw away.

I'll put away my metaphors, I'll vacuum the stairs. I'll hide in the kitchen, restless fingers sculpting your dinner, scrubbing your dishes. I'll sit in the corner with the unplugged fan, I'll turn myself into an appliance, if only to be useful again.

I've given up on being good. I just want to be useful to you.

The Universe Is Going To Catch You

2010-04-21T21:59:00.000-07:00

I feel like I should elaborate on this "hiatus", simply as an exercise for myself to discover some ground rules of this hiatus.

Technically, I do not plan on not writing during this period. If anything, I am hoping that by the end of this week, posting for my 365 project will resume on a somewhat regularly basis. The reason for continued posting is simple: if there was any point in the year when it was necessary for me to do something on a day to day basis, it would be this period of time I find myself in.

This "hiatus" is really just a temporary reprieve from reality. I deleted my Facebook and will not be available for chat, and I am still up in the air whether or not I will even respond to my phone (I am tempted to say that I won't, but in all honesty, if someone were to call me, I don't know if I could be that cruel as to skip their call).

I plan to spend my time with a book and no disasters; I'd like to take a few days of not even listening to music, or turning on the computer. I'd like to just feel paper underneath my fingers. I'd like to never open my mouth again, or to make eye contact or feel someone's hand on my shoulder.

For those that want to know why this hiatus is suddenly necessary, I will do my best to elucidate without giving too much away.

I have already retreated from social life before (from about September to December, though by mid-December I was regretting it and trying to revive dead friendships), though it was somewhat less severe than what I am enforcing on myself right now.

The issue at hand here is the sudden and gross violation of trust perpetuated by more than one culprit. Though I want to forgive and forget (mostly forget), leaving myself open just seems like too much to ask. My trust has been broken in several different ways, so that I feel as if I can't trust anyone with anything.

This mindset is ultimately what has been blockading my thoughts; there has to be a basic level of trust in humanity as a whole to take what I write and to "get it", and I'm beginning to wonder whether people will always end up brushing me off or simply being incapable of understanding on any level. Or, even worse (and strangely the one that always happens to me), people will see what I write and hear what I say and use it against me to tear me down.

I'm simply tired of being told that I'm a terrible human being. I don't know how it's possible to cry and not sleep for half a year, to constantly make myself defenseless and to take the brunt of the pain everyone slings around, and for things to not get better at all. I take emotional abuse because I hope that in the end, these people who say they love me will relent, and that things will get better. I don't want an arms race of pain. I have been struggling with this for the last seven months (or, you could say for the last year, or even for my entire life), and I've come to the conclusion that the smart decision is to protect myself.

I honestly hate that it's come to the point where I don't feel safe with anyone, but unfortunately that is the state I'm in.

I Hope That This Shaking Will Help Us Awaken

2010-04-20T20:48:00.000-07:00

No Way Down by Air France

Insound

I have to be honest, I've never listened to Air France before. I wasn't really sure what I was expecting. I actually missed out on getting into the Tough Alliance and other Sincerely Yours artists. I didn't even listen to Since I Left You by the Avalanches (and still haven't).

So, all I can really say is that I enjoyed this release. The EP lasts just barely 23 minutes, and in that short time frame, Air France manages to take you to an idyllic place ("Collapsing at Your Doorstep" features the lines "Sort of like a dream, isn't it?/No, better"). The entire album is an exercise in happiness, and whatever few sparse lyrics you might stumble upon through the course of the EP, the majority of them will be blissful and carefree ("No Way Down" winds down with a repeated "Hallelujah").

If there is any real lasting impression, however, it would be this: I want an LP from these guys. Though stunningly beautiful and concise, No Way Down is almost too short.

The Emptiness of Talking

2010-04-19T18:16:00.000-07:00

Everything is Good Here/Please Come Home by The Angels of Light

Insound

AAAAHHHH. STOP. JUST STOP.

Everybody, just say no!

I Want To Recreate What Love Is

2010-04-17T13:49:00.000-07:00

I haven't really been interested in my project the last few days. It isn't like I wouldn't love to slip into someone else's mind right now. I'd love to find a lyric that could validate the inner workings of my own mind. It's entirely possible that I will, by the end of tonight, find some album that I want to review and share.

However, predominantly I just want to share some songs. Sometimes enjoying music for the sake of music is just as rewarding as whatever it is that happens when I review an album.

If I had to be honest, which I do because I want to be a good person again, I simply haven't been in a place where it feels right to talk. Things aren't always as they should be. Whether I want to admit it or not, I am in the midst of a musical dry spell. Though I am pretty much up to my neck in good music, my mind is completely closed off to it. I don't really hear anything, I don't really register any meaning at all. I am enjoying music for the sound that it makes, and left feeling cold.

So this is why I haven't really been able to post anything since last Sunday, when I reviewed three albums at once. After being told "I'm sick of you", I just couldn't feel music anymore. I don't know when that will change, but until then, here are some sounds that I like.

Oxford Icebergs - "Before The Devil Knows You're Dead"
Forest Fire - "Fortune Teller" (thanks Angela for sharing this song with me)
Ganglians - "Voodoo"
Röyksopp - "Poor Leno [Silikon Soul Remix]; There Is A Light That Never Goes Out"
Ada - "Luckycharm; Intuition"

When the Cactus Are In Full Bloom

2010-04-16T22:44:00.001-07:00

Franz Ferdinand by Franz Ferdinand

Insound

I only remember Franz Ferdinand being played on the radio. Coming out in 2004, I was in the middle of catching up with the entire decade of 90s music. Because of this, Franz Ferdinand always seems much older than they really are in my mind.

Listening to the album now, it's hard to remember that this probably came out when I was in high school. I can't help but think "This sounds like it was released alongside Oasis and Blur". In the haze of my memory, Franz Ferdinand blends with Interpol and Arctic Monkeys, dance-able rock musicians that I only ever heard on the radio. They all just feel old.

Out of boredom I will link to Pitchfork's review, simply because I don't want to think right now. This will just be edited at the end of the month, when I have time.

I Don't Want To Know

2010-04-16T00:36:00.000-07:00

Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix by Phoenix

Insound

It's been almost an entire year since I last listened to this album. On the cusp of summer, "Lisztomania" and "1901" were the perfect summer-welcoming songs. I didn't care to know the lyrics, I didn't care to analyze why I was listening to the album so much, it was just playing morning day and night. At some point towards the middle of the summer, I finally exhausted the album, and put it to bed.

At the time, I honestly had not put much thought behind the album. I held a certain amount of disdain for people that relied too heavily on lyrics to enjoy music (I often found myself snottily saying "There's more to it than just the words!"). It wasn't until months later I realized the Wolfgang Amadeus was a reference to the Wolfgang Amadeus Beethoven. When I had listened to it before, I had focused on its pop accessibility, I had focused on its clean hi-hats and slick guitars. My assumption that there was "more to it" than the lyrics had strangled the meaning from the album.

Listening to the album again a year later is proving to be difficult. I can't help but feel sad; comparing where I was a year ago to where I am today, and it just doesn't make any sense to me.

The subject of time is the predominant theme in the album, and the band explores this very thoroughly. The opener "LIsztomania" begins with Mars singing "These days it comes and goes", describing the end of a relationship. In "1901" he asserts that the "past and present they don't matter", elaborating in Fences that what was "once remembered now forgotten". "Love Like A Sunset", the album's 8 minute center, simply asks "When did we start the end?" "Rome" parallels the collapse of an empire to the end of a relationship ("2000 years remain in a trash can"), as Mars explains in "Countdown" that "true and everlasting, it didn't last that long." The band closes the album with "Armistice", summing the relationship between timelessness and love with the single line "for lovers in a rush/for lovers always."

The beauty of the album comes from its disjointed and often cryptic lyrics. The album sacrifices lucidity to more perfectly capture the emotion of looking back, using perfect phrases and words to capture the feeling but not necessarily the thought.

I want to make my life a bedroom

2010-04-13T01:06:00.000-07:00

"There's a world/where I can go/and tell my secrets too/In my room, in my room/In this world/I lock out/all my worries and my fears/In my room, in my room..." - "In My Room" by Best Coast, Make You Mine

"I'm sick of you."

They teach you in psychology about the "just noticeable difference", the minimum amount of difference necessary between two objects to notice a change. The JND, as they call it, is susceptible to changing "magnitudes"; that is, the difference of, say, the weight of two items is easier for us to notice when the objects are smaller. But as the magnitude of the weight increases, our ability to notice a difference becomes muted, requiring a larger actual difference to trigger detection.

"I'm sick of you."

If the weight of our sadness had been smaller, would I have been able to discern our just noticeable difference?

"I'm sick of you."

In my mind, I am looking for the signs, the JNDs I must have noticed but chose to brush off. "Life changes fast, life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends," Joan forewarned.

"I'm sick of you."

These four words, so truthfully uttered, were the larger actual difference, the trigger for me to finally understand that everything in my life has changed.

I didn't realize how much I actually relied on you being there for me until you were gone. You promised you cared about me, you promised to be my friend. "Life changes in the instant." Life changes in the moment of just noticeable difference, when you realize everything you were relying on has changed.

I want to make my life a bedroom, I want to close the door and be able to pick and choose what belongs here. I want to feel safe again.

And Other's Hearts Are Guarded From The Blows of Random Pain

2010-04-11T23:41:00.000-07:00

Lie Down in the Light by Bonnie "Prince" Billy

Insound

Prior to tonight, I've never actually listened to Will Oldham. This is a truly shameful feat on my part, considering his almost ubiquitous presence in folk music. Immediately evident is that Lie Down In The Light explores themes of comfort, God, love, and emotional aches, all with the air of finality and peace.

Musically, Oldham uses many standard veins of American music (gospel, folk, and country), but remains fresh and inventive. Overall, the album feels at once familiar but surprising; "So Everyone" features a washboard-sounding type of percussion, while the title track (if you pay really close attention) makes use of a little springish "boing" in the background and "For Every Field There Is A Mole" also features a surprising jazzy clarinet solo. The lyrics follow this pattern as well — "So Everyone" seems like your usual girl/guy duet until Oldham and Webber sing "O kneel down and please me/O lady O boy/Show how you want me/And do it so everyone sees me." Oldham and Webber again take the girl/boy formula and take a refreshing twist in "You Want That Picture", depicting a romance in ruins.

Thematically, Lie Down In The Light is a comforting album of reassurance in the light of doubt. In the opener "Easy Does It", Oldham sings "I number the friends and the family that love me/I welcome the ring of the moonlight above me/and I wander, and lay in whatever old bed/With good, earthly music singing into my head." The song itself opens on a note of resignation in which Oldham is faced with "only one thing [he] can do", but by the time he's numbered his friends and family, a happy little piano breaks through and Oldham admits "There's my brothers, my girlfriends/my mom, and my dad/and there's me/and that's all there needs to be". This feeling of deriving simple pleasures is present also on "You Remind Me of Something (The Glory Goes)", in which Oldham sings "I like the places where the night does not mean an end/where smiles break free/and surprise is your friend/and dancing goes on in the kitchin/until dawn to my favorite song/that has no end". There are also two standout tracks that directly reference Gospel; "For Every Field There Is A Mole" is a different take on Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 while "I'll Be Glad" references Psalm 23:1 and explores (and testifies) Oldham's faith and trust in God.

"Missing One" and "What's Missing Is" explore different facets of something being missed; in "Missing One" Oldham refers to the specific melancholy of missing someone, though he ends with "I know I will continue/to try and please you/and even in some ways/to try and be you." "What's Missing Is", however, discusses the emptiness of meaningless relationships.

The most explored theme on the album, however, is starting a new family. In "(Keep Eye On) Other's Gain" begins with Oldham stating "there's only so much here upon the earth to go around", coming to the conclusion that it's necessary to "keep your loved ones near". By the second half, Oldham describes familial needs ("You need me at the table/sitting down and nodding grace/and holding you just by/laying kisses on your face"), coming to terms with one's responsibility to fend for the family and protect them from harm. By "Where is the Puzzle?", Oldham finds himself disappearing from his family and ready to start anew, singing "And I want only you/and I trust only you/and I want only to/sing you". This theme of beginning a new family culminates in "Lie Down In The Light", where Oldham juxtaposes the sadness of life ("time and again one of us falls behind") with starting a family together (Who's gonna hold my heart/Who's gonna be my own own own?/Who's gonna know when all is dark/that she is not alone?"). Oldham wisely does not promise ease and bliss ("Heed this word: beware/for my heart's ways are unclear") but invites you all the same to lie down in the light.