I write today’s monthly update in cold cloudy evening in the final days of recovery from a cold that sprouted from its roots right before Halloween, spitefully punishing me for my return to apathy towards the holiday after a meager two years enchanted by it with the desperate self-expression of collegiate life. The night prior to the noon where I wailed from the nasal mire crusting the edges of my sweaty sheets that the indifference to contagiousness of my infected peers had slain me alas, I finished listening to the releases of this month, tested negative for COVID, and went masked and lurking in the distant back corners of the Lodge Room to see Xiu Xiu perform live for the first time. The show ended their tour for their incredible album, 13” Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips, named after a knife from Jamie Stewart’s collection randomly picked by Angela Seo but also one of his favorites, or at least that’s what I vaguely recall from a Reddit post I saw around this time, oh but which less importantly, I highlighted pre-emptively in last month’s blog post.
Despite my hypocritical choices to attend this event in my slightly noticeable declining health, Stewart, Seo, and the recent drummer addition of David Kendrick earned the laurel for best concerts I’ve been to, in terms of what I daydream about for live music. They played at least fifty different instruments in total, turned the slow-burner spoken word piece “Wig Master” into a soul-shattering cacophony, improved legendary early songs like “Suha” and “Sad Pony Guerilla Girl” with calculated structural changes that summoned the primeval emotional prowess of sound echoing their empathetic tragic storytelling into your hypnotized remembrances of youth, and decorated each song with handstands, dance moves like broken inner machines, and cymbal hits adding dent after dent into the warped brass. Very fun :3.
To open up November, Phil Elverum under the moniker Mount Eerie has dropped Night Palace, equally intimate, noisy, and powerful. When I saw him perform many of these songs last Spring opening for the LA Philharmonic, he took the opposite approach to Xiu Xiu, performing about ten songs as brief acoustic poems, lingering on each word in spaces of silence, only keeping engaged the elderly attendants who have never heard him and young folk waiting for something off of The Glow, Pt. 2 with anecdotes humorous in their blunt meaninglessness. The sting of the cool air against the red rims of my nostril where soft tissues have gradually worn away the skin signals my awaited change from the wet hustling summer to the warm restful winter. With all of my plans cancelled, I’ve kept in good spirits :3, anyway here are some highlighted new releases of the month.
KXLU’s October Adds:
Little Moon – Dear Divine
This would be my pick for best release of the month (not already mentioned last month). A beautiful chamber folk album that compounds all the best elements of Sufjan Stevens, Richard Dawson, Joanna Newsom, Weyes Blood, Mili, and many others. Her songwriting does not seem to stem from acute concepts or fantasy storytelling like some of those listed but instead carries those traits as lived experiences in a direct sweetness brought to full graceful effect with a parade of erupting orchestration and her virtuoso vocal range. Unique backing vocals, the lush production constantly crashing wave after wave with ornate layers of sound, and delicately piercing synth and glitch work make the release truly modern and personal. “Messy Love” has this devouring crescendo that is like a hopeful shattering through the mortal trance of “Lay Your Hands On Me” by Boom Boom Satellites’ own crescendo, and “Wonder Eye” is like a Yeule song in the Garden of Eden. I inscribe these over-specific references to note how Dear Divine’s excellent track-by-track craftsmanship distinguishes it as more than another chamber folk release. Earnest, impressive, heavenly, you dream of flying when your eyes finally rest on their damp pillow.
Halloweiner Finds [dog emoji, bone emoji]
Zookraught – Vida Violet
Awesome synth-punk band that I almost had the privilege of running a live session with this Friday if it were not for me getting sick and scheduling conflicts. Such well engineered noise that goes with each individual song, death metal riffing, crack Beastie Boys vocal interchange, they are the full package for sure. If you liked the new Xiu Xiu album, totally check this out and get the unhinged punk version of that dense passionate sound. The closing track captures all of the sanitary horrors of American waterparks.
Pharmakon – Maggot Mass
A handful of real gross and ugly extended death industrial songs. I first heard this album while I was working on something else and the songs started blending into each other while also having distinct variety and energy—all of a sudden I was trapped in a dark room, breathing in the heavy dank smell of mildew with every breath, steeped in an ankle-high layer of grime. Low squeaks echoed from the floor all around me and my swollen bare feet tripped over something large and hairy lying on the floor. Now soaked in the heavy sludge at my feet, I crawled around carelessly grasping about for my glasses. My fingers pored over the heap I had tripped over, entering into a triangular hole where a thicker, but warm substance pooled at the center of a spherical basin. A long tear of mold-consumed flesh peeled off as I quickly withdrew my hand from the skull of the rotting corpse. Then I danced around to the rest of the album and went to class.
Zamilska – United Kingdom of Anxiety
The dread of your favorite trip-hop songs rises from the opal oil drainage lagoons when sparkling vagrants drift back into the night at the end of a sudden thunderstorm. Half-decomposed limbs from the paved over cemetery dangle from the concretion as the voices of the fleshy shells contort and fuse together like melting sinew. The monsters scream along to the shaking DJ’s songs as they ooze across the club in tandem with the other dancers WOOOOO!
High Marks – sOURED
Meanwhile at the warehouse, the eight foot orphan peels back his fingernails to scrawl his plans in blood across the rusted steel rivets. Glowing spirits blink into a hectic curve then disappear as quick as they came, prancing in paranoid celebration of their fateful harbinger, veins as hollow as the immense barn rattling in the wind. The hanging iridescent lightbulb shatters to the floor, he claws out his eyes and squeezes himself to a shivering ball on the floor. On the wall he’s written, “I love the synths :p!”
Berlin Taxi – Milestones
Cloaked figures enter the warehouse and remove sOURED from the turntable. It’s been the busiest time of the year for the village cult but their shift’s just about over for the night. Tomorrow morning they’ll have to round up and seal all of the creatures they helped release for their leader tonight, but for now they can do a bit of partying of their own. A figure comments on his wall writing, “this guy gets it,” and lays Milestones by Berlin Taxi onto the player. He drops the needle on the petroleum whirlpool and those juicy synths they all love ring out at mach speed. They all sing along and let loose, TGIF.
Meteor Police – Hallowtide Hymns (EP)
I love punk as the rock evolution of folk music, namely that it always has a voice with something to say and that it can make such simultaneously personal and systemic ideas so fun. For most of my life, I have been traumatized by tangible night terrors, frightfully lucid, walking, screaming, attacking blurred figures in the wilderness seeping into my home and digital screens, losing trust in every security, spot of darkness, and static moment, from what I was told the doctor diagnosed as an “overactive” mind. I took much pride in that as a sign of my intelligence, but it was likely shining a light, not even foreshadowing, on an anxious fate. At this point in my life, I’ve coped with a sort of psychotic lobotomy to nightmarish fears, and thus find immense joy in the quirky development of horror punk. Need a chaser for your fifth consecutive day of relistening to the entire Misfits catalogue? Check out this quick EP full of fun and haunted punk tunes.
Final Recommendations… If You Dare
Inspector 34 – Squint Your Eyes
Such chaotic and cacophonous music, I freaking love it! Maybe the scariest present terror is in the mind of this post’s author, and the erratic haste of musicians who keep his bloodthirsty (Vegan) appetite met. There are also some stabler psychedelic tracks with rich distortion undercurrents. It’s like a collaborative demo tape between Elephant 6 and Animal Collective, but then they each just start doing what they do best without listening to what the other’s trying to say. Thank you for the music!
Bonus: Moe Staiano – Away Towards the Light
On the previous album’s borderline no-wave note that I supremely appreciate, this an album with three “experimental” guitar compositions/movements. Moe’s like a modern Glenn Branca, and be warned, for to this day he’s still on the loose!
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Physical submissions (vinyl, CD, cassette):
KXLU 88.9FM
Attn: Brett Koehn / Music Director
One LMU Dr
Los Angeles, CA 90045
Digital submissions:
Email: brettkxlu@gmail.com
Brett also co-hosts A Fistful of Vinyl every Thursday from 9-10pm PST on KXLU 88.9FM.