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standuphippy · 5 years ago

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February Favorites

Every December I have a ritual. First, I try to compile a list of records, movies, and shows I’ve enjoyed the year. I wait until the last minute and then struggle to get it posted before the first of the year. I dump something half-assed on New Year’s Eve, then sit back and cluck my tongue at anyone who posts a “Best of the Year” list after Jan. 1.

I always resolve to do something sooner (and better) so this is a first step in that direction. The world has changed since I started this, but fuck it, here’s what I enjoyed in February. Here’s a link to a playlist for the music: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7ucvCNnCuT4ZZVCyz2ddKM

NEW MUSIC:  

Agnes Obel “Myopia”   Her fourth record of fine orchestral pop.    Arbor Labor Union “New Petal Instants” Four years ago I went to see them at the Bootleg and I’m pretty sure I was the only person in the audience who wasn’t in one of the opening bands. It was a great show. Southern fried guitars. I like Bo Orr’s yelp.

Califone “Echo Mine” Happy to finally get a new Califone record, though it’s a companion work to a dance piece and some tracks leave me wondering what I’m looking at. There are some great songs that anchor it as a whole. I love the sound of Tim Rutilli’s voice and guitar, and I think he’s a master of weaving abstract lyrics and melody in a way that makes his phrases land emotionally true.

Cold Beat “Mother” Synth pop that has the hooks.

Eyelids ”The Accidental Falls” Three years ago I visited a friend in Minneapolis. Woke up and made coffee and he put the “Or” record on the turntable, and Oh! that riff in “Slow it Goes”… a pretty great intro to this band. They’ve really put in a lot of work with collaborators recently, including an EP with John Cameron Mitchell. “The Accidental Falls” has lyrics furnished by poet Larry Beckett. (Related recommendation: Eyelids “Or”)

Frances Quinlan “Insight”   Hop Along started out as Frances Quinlan’s home recording project, then grew into a band so successful that she has to qualify her new record as a solo album. The distinction makes sense when you hear it, though, it’s pretty stripped down. I love her voice. (Related recommendation: Hop Along “Painted Shut”)

Greg Dulli “Random Desire”  The Afghan Whigs are one of my all-time favorite bands. On his first “official” solo record, Dulli sounds energized and tries some interesting vocal tricks.  (Related recommendation: The Afghan Whigs “Gentlemen” and “Black Love”)

Grimes “Miss Anthropocene” I like this record.

Heart Bones “Hot Dish” Sabrina Ellis and Har Mar Superstar are two of the best performers out there. They got together a few years go and toured playing songs from the Dirty Dancing Soundtrack; now they’ve got their first full length and it’s just as catchy and funny as I’d hoped.

The Innocence Mission “See You Tomorrow”  I loved their first self-titled record back in 1989 and I’ll check out anything they release. Their arrangements are pretty spare these days but Karen Peris’ voice has always been the draw.  (Related recommendation: The Innocence Mission “The Innocence Mission”)

The Men “Mercy”  Over their career they’ve gone in a lot of musical directions and made several outstanding records. They’re incredible live but they haven’t been to Los Angeles in years. (Related recommendations: The Men “Open Your Heart” and “Tomorrow Hits”)

POLIÇA “When We Stay Alive”  This may be their best record yet. 

Sarah Harmer “Are You Gone”  Sarah Harmer played at Spaceland (now Satellite) in support of her excellent record “Oh Little Fire.” I’d had a long week and skipped it; I’ve had to wait ten fucking years for a follow up record and tour. If Kathleen Edwards is the Zoë Records version of Lucinda Williams, Sarah Harmer is the label’s version of Shawn Colvin.

Soccer Mommy “color theory”  Haven’t been much of a Soccer Mommy fan in the past but this record is one of my favorite records so far this year. Ride the mid-tempo wave.

Squirrel Flower “I Was Born Swimming” Could easily sit on the shelf between Mitski and TORRES. It’s a great debut.

TORRES “Silver Tongue”  I happened upon Pitchfork’s review of her debut back in 2012 and have been a fan ever since. Her debut is a classic to me. She signed to 4AD, put out two ambitious records and then got dropped. Now she’s on Merge and produced “Silver Tongue” herself. I think it’s her best since her debut. She’s fire live. (Related recommendation: TORRES “TORRES”)

OLD MUSIC (record store finds and new discoveries):

Dry Cleaning “Sweet Princess EP/ Boundary Food and Drink EP”  I was listening to Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs in anticipation of their show here and when the record was over, Spotify played a Dry Cleaning track and I loved it. Both of these EPs are great, filled with spiky guitars and dry, spoken lyrics about the numb horror of modern life.

Guided By Voices “Live From Austin TX”  Found this one at Soundsations. Double vinyl, recorded in 2004 before a hiatus. Sounds good. Lots of “Bee Thousand/ Alien Lanes” classics alongside tracks from “Half-Smiles of the Decomposed,” the record they were touring at the time.

Rosie Thomas “With Love”  I liked Rosie Thomas’ Sub Pop releases, I didn’t know about this one but I found it at Amoeba. Happy to find out about it, it’s one of her best.

NEW MOVIES (theatrical): 

Emma.  It’s fun and it’s gorgeous. Every frame of the film is carefully considered and it shows. The performances are excellent and when the sparks start to fly it’s a thrill. 

Beanpole  It’s soul-crushing and gorgeous. The characters struggle to put their lives together in postwar Leningrad and find that any act of kindness or mercy can be manipulated or subverted. It’s not a cruel film, but it can be hard to watch. I’ve thought about it quite a bit since I watched it: about what writer/director Kantemi Balegov showed onscreen versus what he didn’t, how the characters’ histories are revealed, and about the performances that brought them to life. The film stayed with me, which is one of the highest compliments I can give. The trailer is a fine piece of work in and of itself.

OLD MOVIES:

  Ad Astra  I don’t know how this got made and that’s not a slight but a registration of genuine bewilderment. The film is a juxtaposition of emotional emptiness and the void of the universe. An internal character study wrapped in first-rate sci-fi set pieces. I marveled at it on an XD screen last year and recently watched it with my wife. If anything, I wish it had leaned even harder into its art house impulses and cut the voice-over narration in half.   Doctor Sleep (Theatrical)  I tried to see this in the theater but I couldn’t make it happen. It wasn’t that my wife gave birth a week previous or that the film got middling aggregate reviews, as either of those factors by themselves would not have dissuaded me. I simply couldn’t get past the fact that I’d already wasted two and a half hours in the execrable mire that was IT: Part II two months beforehand and the experience left me gun-shy. Wish I’d checked it out on the big screen, looking forward to diving into the Director’s Cut.

The Gold Rush (1942 Version) I’d never seen this version of the Charlie Chaplin classic: it runs a few minutes shorter than the original and has voice-over narration. Started watching it with my daughter while we were home sick and realized that the sight of Big Jim, especially in a jittery frame rate, is pretty unsettling to a six year old.

Hacksaw Ridge Mel Gibson gets away with a lot of things, as a director it’s graphic violence. Andrew Garfield plays a conscientious objector who joins the army to be a medic and refuses to touch a weapon. The second half of the film is grueling but the WWII combat looks incredible.   House by the Cemetery  Your enjoyment of this movie will depend on your love for Italian horror cinema and all of its idiosyncrasies. The value is in the modes of death and the sound design. House by the Cemetery is not a great movie, but I love the scene where Bob is trying to get out of the basement. For a split second I felt genuine panic, as I realized that Fulci might be willing to take the events of the film further than I was willing to follow them.

Old Joy  I saw Old Joy when it was originally released and I loved it. Two old friends at different turning points in their lives go on a camping trip. Kelly Reichardt’s made a lot of great films since then, but Old Joy has a special place in my heart because when I saw it I had just entered my 30’s and still had friends like Kurt.  

BOOKS:

Ad Nauseam by Michael Gingold It’s a collection of vintage newspaper ads for horror films from the 80’s. Reading it brought back a lot of memories. I admire the effort of saving these for so many years.

The Guardians by Sarah Manguso   I picked up 300 Arguments a few years ago after the AV Club recommended it and read it on a flight to Chicago. It’s made up of 300 short passages, some only a sentence long. I admired the precision and thoughtfulness of those focused lines.

I sought out some of her other work and found her very relatable, in part because we’re the same age, suffered from similar medical conditions, and spent time in Iowa City. I’ve read Ongoingness: The End of a Diary, and The Two Kinds of Decay.

The Guardians is a memoir about her close friend, written following his suicide by train.

Reading her books creates this expansive image of Manguso as a person, in that some of the events of the three books overlap. I realized that her reflections in The Guardians were those of the person who had also overcome the prolonged health issues described in The Two Kinds of Decay, and was writing about all of it in the diaries described in Ongoingness: The End of a Diary. They are all great reads. I’d start with 300 Arguments.

SHOWS:

Imperial Teen Zebulon 02/28/20 When I see Imperial Teen I think about all the other times that I’ve seen Imperial Teen. I think about all of those times in my life and the different highs and lows that the band has been through. All the different times that they seemed poised for great success that never materialized. Despite those disappointments, they still put out a record every few years and occasionally play a few shows. They have a deep catalog of excellent pop songs. It’s as great a pleasure to see them today as it was twenty years ago.   Califone The Hi Hat 02/29/20 I love Red Red Meat but I’ve never seen a great show by them. I like Califone and I’ve seen some good shows, but the last one I caught (2017) turned out to be a Tim Rutilli solo show and that’s not what I wanted. The show at The Hi Hat was the best Califone show I’ve ever seen. They sounded excellent and Rutilli seemed enthusiastic. He kept thanking the audience for coming out on a Monday night (it was Saturday.) The set stretched close to two hours with no encore.

#favorites #February 2020

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