#it's SUCH a good album opener. those opening chords just chime in like a bell being rung

[daddy-long-legssss]

She's Thunderstorms

"I remember writing this one when there was a storm going on. They get like mad storms over there [in New York], like, apocalyptic. I’m always trying to think of different interesting ways to like describe somebody but compliment them too. So in that one, I like the idea that she’s not even a thunderstorm, she’s more than one. I quite like the fact she’s plural. ‘Thunderstorms’ meaning just, y’know, awesome!"

[x]

[masterofmunson]

Care For You (2)

Slight!Steve x Reader, Billy Hargrove x Reader

Summary: Every time he takes care of her, she runs away  

Warnings: language, angst, mentions of abuse, reader and billy argue, reader and steve argue, that’s it i think 

Word Count: 2.9k+

PART 1 PART 3 PART 4 PART 5

The next morning, Y/n wakes up with a pounding headache and ringing in her ears. She groans into her pillow and hits her clock blindly to stop its ringing.

Her eyes peek open and harsh morning sunlight shines in. She hisses and shuts her eyes again. “I really need to stop drinking,” she mumbled, willing herself to get up and out of bed so she’d be on time for work.

She rubs her face with her hands and glances at her night stand. Two pills rest on top of a slip of paper and a cup sits on top of it. She takes them in her hands and reads the slip. She shrugs, it was probably Steve just taking care of her. She’d call and thank him later.

She grabs a clean outfit from her dresser and moves slowly into the bathroom. She shuts and locks the door behind her. She starts the shower and strips out of the clothes she wore to the party.

Taking a quick shower, she changes and looks more presentable than she did 20 minutes prior. She brushes through her hair and puts on a light amount of makeup before grabbing her keys and purse and bounding down the stairs. She greets her parents with a cheery hello, masking her terrible hangover.

She eats a quick bowl of cereal before running out towards her mom’s car. She drives quickly to the record store and runs inside. The bell on the door hits the glass with a loud chime and she hurries into the back, tossing her things on the break room couch. She punches in before grabbing her name tag and walking back onto the floor to find Ronnie.

She’s panting hard. “I made it, Ronnie. What do you want me to do today?”

Her manager gives her a hard stare and crosses her arms over her chest. “You’re lucky you’re not late, Y/l/n,” she said, “and that I like you. Just make sure all the records are organized correctly. You’re on cashier duty, too.”

She nods before moving towards the back half of the store and working her way up to the front.

Half way through her shift, the bell chimes loudly and she shouts a “Welcome to Hawkins Records!” before returning to her task.

“Y/n! Are you still on for rehearsal tonight? I had a few ideas about one of the pieces you started!” Tim shouted from the stage, cleaning the floor.

She groans, running a hand through her hair. “Crap! I completely forgot, I have to babysit the boys! I promised I’d take ‘em to the arcade.” She curses under her breath and rubs her temple.

“Can’t you get Steve to watch them? He loves the kids.”

“I mean—I guess I could. I just… I haven’t seen them in a while and I don’t want to disappoint them for having to cancel… again,” she sighs.

“C’mon, Y/n. They’re 13 year old boys. They’ll be fine,” he said. “We really need to solidify the material for Battle of the Bands.”

“I know, I know, it’s just… it’s my senior year and I’m trying to spend as much time with my brother because I’m going away for college. Dylan is going to miss me.”

She looks down at the pile of records she’s sorting and takes a deep breath. No one really understood the strong relationship she had with her younger brother and his best friends. They thought it was odd and they often made fun of her for it, but she loved them. They were funny and sweet and so incredibly loyal to each other.

“Think about it, okay?” he asks.

“Yeah, I will.”

The bell above the door chimes again and this time, she turns to face the door with a fake smile plastered on her face. “Welcome to Hawkins Records!”

The customer smiles at her and starts to thumb through the closest record slot.

“Hey, Y/n, do you have any album suggestions?” a voice asks from behind her. She spins around and she’s face to face with Billy. He’s dressed in a jean jacket, loose t-shirt, and tight jeans. A smirk adorns his smug face and she crosses her arms defensively.

“Are you stalking me, Billy? Why are you here?” she sighs exasperatedly.

“I want a record and I want your recommendation.”

“Oh, please. That’s not why you’re here and you and I both know it,” she hissed under her breath.

He rolls his eyes and crosses his arms over his chest. “Fine. How’re you doing? Are you that hungover from last night?” he concedes.

Her eyes narrow at him. “What the hell are you talking about, Billy?”

He glares at her. “The party, Y/l/n. You were drunk off your ass. I helped you get home because your dimwit of a boyfriend was MIA.”

“Wha—what? No, Steve, my friend, took me home,” she shakes her head in disbelief and closes her eyes. She tries to remember what happened last night. She remembers Steve picking her up and she remembers arguing with him about what she wanted to drink. Everything else after that is few and far in between. “I would never go home with you. Ever.”

He smirks smugly and leans in towards her. “Really, Y/n? You’re that much in denial that you can’t even think for a second that I was a decent human being and helped your drunk ass home.”

She takes a deep breath, blood boiling beneath her hot skin. Her eyes open and she’s met with his disgustingly blue ones. “Yes, I find that hard to believe. Is that what you want to hear. Look who we’re talking about here. You’re a piece of shit to your sister. You're an absolute prick to any guy you deem as a threat. You treat girls like dog toys. Shall I go on or do you want me to stop? Just because you did one nice thing for me, doesn’t mean I owe you anything. It’s scary that you’re not in jail yet, considering the fact that you almost kid a child last month because he likes your sister. I hope to all things holy that you won’t be a dad.”

Her eyes widen in shock at her own words. She’s frozen in place in the middle of the store. Even though she doesn’t like him, she’d never say that. Not even to him.

Her own words settle deep into her chest and she takes a labored breath in. “Billy I—I’m so sorry.”

“Shove it, Y/n,” he snaps, storming out the store.

She sighs loudly, shaking her head. “I can’t believe those words just came out of my mouth!” she loudly chastises herself. She was in definite deep shit. She would have to swallow her pride and be the woman her parents are raising her to be and apologize sincerely to him. She groans. She really needed to keep her mouth shut.

For the next two days, Y/n mopes in her bedroom and at work. She didn’t go to rehearsals that night and her mood was somber at the arcade. Even though they were step-siblings, every time Y/n looked at Max, she could see Billy.

She had struck a chord in him. She saw it and he did too. She knew she had to apologize and make up for what she said, which was why she found herself on the porch of his house on a Sunday night, clutching a Styx’s album to her chest. She takes a deep breath before reaching and pressing the doorbell.

The bell rings through her ears and a few moments pass before the door is ripped open.

Billy looks at her and moves to shut the door but she pushes the door with her arm and she frowns. “You shouldn’t be here, Y/n. You need to leave,” he demands firmly, looking back into his house. He steps onto the porch and shuts the door. “What do you want?”

“Listen, Billy, what I said the other day was completely out of line. I shouldn’t have said what I did. I feel terrible about it. I’m so incredibly sorry, Billy. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me,” she said, swallowing hard and meeting his gaze.

“It’s no big deal,” he brushed off. “I’m an asshole. I deserved it.”

She shakes her head. “You might be a dick, but no one deserves to hear what I said. Not even you. I’m so sorry, Billy.”

“I forgive you, Y/n. I’ll see you at school,” he rushed, moving towards the door again.

“Billy, wait.” She said, pushing the album in her hands towards him. “Take this.”

“What’s this?” He asked, looking at the album.

“A peace offering,” she said with a smile. “You asked for an album recommendation, so here you go. Cornerstone is a masterpiece. Babe is a good song to listen to.”

A smile graces his face and Y/n breathes a little easier. She was getting somewhere.

“Billy! Who’s at the door?!” a voice roared from inside the house.

Billy’s eyes widen and Y/n jumps at the sound. “No one! They’re just leaving!” he yelled back. “Y/n, I really appreciate this, but you really need to go. If my dad comes out and sees you I’m dead. Please leave,” he pleads in a whisper.

She nods her head in understanding. “I’ll see you at school, Billy.”

He nods before she hurries off the porch and he heads back inside.

“Who was at the door, Billy?” his father barks at him from his spot on the couch.

“No one,” he lies through his teeth. “Just one of Max’s friends dropping off something for her.”

His father looks at him with a firm gaze before waving him off. Billy exhales a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding in and heads into his room. Pulling out the record Y/n gifted him, he puts it in his stereo and the music thunders through his room. A small smile finds its way onto his face; she was right. Cornerstone was a great album and Babe was a good song.

As Y/n rode home on her old beat up bike, she replays what happened with Billy over again in her head. He had forgiven her, which was a good thing, but something was definitely off. When his dad yelled at him from inside the house, he seemed almost… afraid. It was like he was expecting something terrible to happen. It made her anxious and it worried her.

She knows it’s none of her business, but even Billy doesn’t deserve whatever happens behind closed doors. He was human too with emotions and she can’t ever imagine what it’s like to live in a home life like the one she thinks Billy’s in because if Billy lives in it, Max does too.

She sighs, climbing off her bike and pushes it into the garage. The boys, plus El and Max, roll up in Steve’s car and run into the house.

“Jesus, Y/n. It feels like I haven’t seen you in forever. How’d you get home after the party? I didn’t see you,” Steve said, swinging his arm around her shoulder as they walk into the house.

She laughs nervously and plays with the end of her shirt. “Funny story,” she trailed off, “Billy Hargrove took me home.”

“What?! He didn’t do anything, right? He didn’t force you into anything?” Steve shouts, grabbing her and scanning her face for any implication that she’s not okay.

“No—God, no. Steve, he didn’t do anything. I guess you disappeared and I was wasted and he just… I dunno… helped me home. He set out pills and a cup of water for me. He even set my clock so I could get up and go to work on time, gave me a note too,” she recounted, looking into the living room and staring at Max play on Dylan’s Atari.

“Oh my God!” he groans, dragging her into the kitchen so the kids couldn’t hear them.

“What?! That’s what happened! He came into the store yesterday and he asked me how I was doing. I thought it was weird and then he told me he helped me home. I know, I thought he was lying too, but he proved otherwise. I said things that I shouldn’t have for no reason and—God, Steve—you should’ve seen his face. It was terrible, almost as if he’s heard it before.”

“So? What’s your point? He’s a piece of shit,” Steve snaps. “Did you forget that he almost killed Lucas and he pounded my face?”

“Of course he’s a piece of shit,” she concedes, nodding her head. “Just listen. I went to his house today to apologize, and he seemed off. He wasn’t acting like the typical “I’m Billy Hargrove and I run Hawkins High” like we know him at school. He was flustered and he seemed… scared almost.”

He scoffs in disbelief. “Billy Hargrove being scared? Are you sure we’re talking about the same Billy Hargrove and not some other prick?”

“Will you let me finish, you little twerp?!” she snapped, feeling her face grow hot. He sighs and rolls his eyes. “Anyways! I could hear someone yelling in the house, I think it was his dad. He asked him who was at the door and he lied. He seemed nervous about having me over. He even said I shouldn’t have come over and apologized. He would look back inside the house almost as if he was waiting for his dad to come and get him. Steve, I’m telling you, there’s something off about Max’s and Billy’s home life. I’m worried.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing, Y/n. Maybe he was busy doing something with his dad and he’s just impatient. Max doesn’t seem off,” Steve dismisses.

She huffs out a frustrated breath. “Sometimes people hide their pain in different ways. Mine’s drinking. Maybe Max’s is playing video games and maybe Billy’s is acting like nothing bothers him.”

“Or maybe she likes playing video games and he’s just a tool. I’d also argue that your rehearsals help you.”

She groans and runs a hand through her hair in frustration. “Are you really this dense to miss my point, Harrington? There’s something wrong!”

He laughs bitterly and shakes his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe you!”

“What’re you talking about?!”

“You of all people are crushing on someone like him! The moment a guy shows the slightest interest in you, you dive in head first. You’re ridiculous!”

“Jesus Christ, Steve! It’s not like that! He took care of me while I was drunk and you were MIA! I said some shitty things and I owned up to them and apologized and I thought he was acting weird! I do not have a crush on him!” she screams in frustration. She huffs out a breath. “I want you and the kids out by seven. I’m going out,” she spat, walking up the stairs. She grabs her guitar case and her backpack. She stomps back down stairs and pokes her head into the family room. All eyes are on her. Steve stands against the wall with his arms crossed defensively. “I’m going to rehearsals. I want all of you out by the time I get back.”

She opens the front door and slams it behind her. She takes one step without looking and bumps into something solid. She looks up and groans. She can never seem to escape Billy Hargrove. She pushes past him and stomps down the driveway towards Hawkins Records.

“Hey, Y/l/n, where are you going?! I have to pick up my sister!” he shouts, running after her and falling into step next to her.

“Out. She’s in good hands. Unless you want to pick her up with all her friends present, I suggest you wait,” she glances at her watch, “an hour. Come back then.”

“Who’s watching them?”

“Why, so you can hit on my mom? No thanks,” she spat back bitterly. “I told you. They’re in good hands.”

“It’s your boyfriend, isn’t it?”

She lets out a frustrated scream. “He’s not my boyfriend, Hargrove! Would you leave me alone? Just because I apologized and gave you a stupid album, doesn’t mean I want to be your friend. Go have sex with Tina or Lexi or whoever you’re with to pass the time.”

He laughs with a smirk. “Then, I’d have to have sex with you then, wouldn’t I? Since I’m with you?”

“Go suck a cucumber, Billy,” she spat.

He laughs. “So what’s with the guitar? You in a band or somethin’?”

“Kind of. It’s for Battle of the Bands,” she said, tugging on the strap.

“Battle of the Bands?”

She stops walking and turns towards him. Her mouth drops and she gives him a questioning look. “You’ve been here since October and you haven’t heard of Battle of the Bands?” She questions and he shakes his head. “Not even in passing or other conversations?” He shakes his head again. “Jesus Christ, I’m disappointed. Battle of the Bands is like a staple in Hawkins. It’s every March at the theater. A bunch of people create bands and ‘compete’ for a prize, but it’s just to raise money for members of the community. Everyone goes, it’s a big deal.”

He nods his head. “Sounds fun. I’m assuming you’re in the program?” She nods in confirmation. “Can’t wait to hear what you got.”

She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, okay. I’ll see you tomorrow, Billy. See you later.”

“See you later.”

WOOHOO ENJOY AND TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK

BILLY TAG: @dannystylesmalik @arronity @xsuperwholockaddictx-blog @buchonians @httperrornicole @codewordpigeon @itstheghostgirl @rainbowfez @itsnotiniah @tah0e @ghostkani @romanceapocalyptic @nistaposebno @dvcremontgomery @ssweet-empowerment @emislayyyy74 @mykingdomismyheaven @leavingtonight-1967 @jvsbe @kassidydem @shyriss-23 @richardbemadden @the—gazeboeffect @barbarairene-k @oldwanderingsoul @therebeltype @cnopps3 @not-a-glad-gladiator @paledragonengineer @buckylovelybarnes @alwayscaughtredhanded @daddy-montgomery @selenedarkbloom @tavia0407 @buckysjuicyplums @irishollynatural @artisticlales @sleepy-rad @his-cocaine-heart @theconscientiouswriter @tremilyteapot @c-ly-g @ace-angel-judas

[rocknutsvibe]

Top 10 Byrds Songs

I’ve found myself dipping into The Byrds catalogue a lot more ever since Tom Petty passed away. Petty’s cover of “I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better” got me going one day, and ever since then I’ve been rediscovering the brilliance of these guys. I keep thinking that if things had worked out differently they could have been the definitive American Beatles, one of the three or four greatest bands of all time, but sadly, in the end The Byrds just couldn’t hold everything together.

What an amazing array of talent they had. Roger McGuinn, David Crosby, Chris Hillman and Gene Clark were excellent singers, songwriters and musicians, each and every one of them, and that is some kind of versatility. They were highly influential Rock pioneers, and many if not most of the songs on this list were highly original and truly trailblazing.

I have deliberately included only one Bob Dylan cover, the big one that launched their career. If the Byrds had a fatal flaw it may have been doing too many Dylan covers. They officially recorded at least 20, which is ridiculous, and it’s also sort of like cheating because you know the songs are already good. More importantly, your reputation as a major musical innovator is compromised if you’re covering somebody else’s work so much of the time.

If The Byrds had made twenty or even ten more songs as good as the ones below instead of doing 20 Dylan covers, who knows how big they might have been? Easier said than done, but as the saying goes, to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. Or in the words of modern day street poets, it is what it is.

  10. Mr. Spaceman

Did a young Tom Petty hear this song on the radio in 1967 and say to himself “that’s what I will sound like someday”? It sure seems like it because it’s all there, the vocal inflection, the humor, the gifted songcraft. And another hint of the country direction the Byrds were headed in.

  9. Tribal Gathering

David Crosby never felt his contributions were given a fair hearing in the band, and the truth is that the Byrds never moved much towards the jazz-flavored stylings that Crosby favored. If they had given Crosby more space The Byrds would have made more music like this, the same kind of signature sound Crosby would eventually bring to his new partners Stills and Nash.

  8. So You Want To Be A Rock ‘N’ Roll Star

It was early ’67 and people were already getting jaded about Rock Stardom. This short and sweet slice of scathing satire was apparently inspired by the Monkees, the pre-Fab Four. But dig the exotic rhythms, Chris Hillman’s amazing bass line, and Hugh Masekela’s trumpet flourishes, I’ve never heard another song remotely like it.

  7. Hickory Wind

A best-of Byrds list has got to include something from Sweetheart Of The Rodeo, generally believed to be the album that gave birth to Country Rock, and it’s got to be a song by the grievous angel himself Gram Parsons, the driving force behind the band’s hard country turn, and a shooting star who deeply influenced Rock before tragically flaming out at age 27. You can’t get any closer to the root than he did.

  6. Wasn’t Born To Follow

A lot of people really love this one because it was featured in the movie Easy Rider, a perfect fit because breezy, rootsy Byrds music works so well on an open highway on a sunny day. You should try it if you haven’t already. The band manages to give this Goffin/King number both a country and a psychedelic treatment, a rare double in the same song.

  5. Chestnut Mare

In 1969 Roger McGuinn was one of a number of Rockers who wanted to combine their music with theater, it was the thing to do back then. McGuinn’s country Rock opera never got made but a few songs survived, including this shimmering, spellbinding cowboy story which was a big hit in the U.K. And we all know the horse is a metaphor for something.

  4. I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better

Track 2 on their debut album, written and sung by drummer Gene Clark, again, this is pure pop perfection that should have been a huge hit. You can hear the Lennon/McCartney influences in the chord changes and structure, but those influences would disappear by the next album as the band found its own confident voice.

  3. Mr. Tambourine Man

Any one of these top three Byrds tracks could be their very best, I could flip a coin to choose between the three of them. But this is the one that started it all. It begins with one of the most memorable licks in Rock history, one that McGuinn ripped off from Bach, and it alone would have made the song stand out. But then the incredible harmonies kick in, bringing Dylan’s vest-pocket mythologies to the unwashed masses for the first time, and suddenly we’ve got a significant cultural artifact on our hands, Folk Rock was being born, and the magic swirling ship was just setting sail.

  2. Eight Miles High

The Byrds were the leaders of the Country Rock movement, but you could also argue they were Psychedelic Rock pioneers too. This song blew a lot of minds when it came out in March 1966. This was six months before the Beatles’ Revolver and its psych trailblazer “Tomorrow Never Knows”, and nobody had ever heard the kind of psychedelic and atonal guitar playing that McGuinn lets rip on “Eight Miles High”. McGuinn said he was channelling Ravi Shankar and John Coltrane and wasn’t intending to be psychedelic at all but it doesn’t really matter. The track was a game changer and one of the most important songs in Rock history.

  1. Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is A Season)

McGuinn’s Rickenbacker chimed like church bells across the land in the Fall of ’65, heralding nothing less than a new awakening for a new generation. You can still taste the bittersweet in it today, hope for the future tinged with the sadness of the past, the wound of JFK’s assassination still fresh at the time. Lots of genius at work here: McGuinn’s arrangement, Pete Seeger’s melody and two big lyric contributions – the repeated title phrase plus the words “a time for peace I swear it’s not too late” – and whoever wrote the rest of these insightful, powerful, timeless words in the Book of Ecclesiastes.

So what are your favourite Byrds songs?

Photo credit: By Joost Evers / Anefo (Nationaal Archief) [CC BY-SA 3.0 nl (http://ift.tt/2CeOqg8], via Wikimedia Commons

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[ricardosousalemos]

Shinichi Atobe: From the Heart, It’s a Start, a Work of Art

It might not feel like it now, at a time when the internet has rendered so many mysteries of the era moot, but from the mid 1990s until not long after the turn of the millennium, Berlin’s Chain Reaction label was among the most cryptic operations in electronic music. Label heads Moritz von Oswald and Mark Ernestus, better known as Basic Channel, kept a defiantly low profile, and the label’s artists trafficked in a dizzying array of aliases; some, like the solo project known simply as Various Artists (Torsten Pröfrock, aka T++, Erosion, et al), continue to flummox databases decades later. The label’s sound didn’t exactly lend itself to transparency, either: grainy dub techno emphasizing collective ethos over individual ego, in which shadows and murk threatened to drown out techno’s steady footfall.

Chain Reaction’s most enduring mystery came with its penultimate release, in 2001: Ship-Scope, a near-perfect EP of shimmering ambient techno credited to one Shinichi Atobe, a total unknown. Unknown he remained: Chain Reaction gave up the ghost two years later, and Atobe dropped out of sight, seemingly for good. Many listeners assumed that he was really another Chain Reaction artist in disguise. Then, in 2014, Demdike Stare’s Sean Canty and Miles Whittaker, allegedly following a tip from the Basic Channel office, claimed to have tracked down the artist at home in Saitama, Japan; they came away with an album’s worth of unreleased material, some new and some archival. The result, Butterfly Effect, built upon Ship-Scope’s dream-world architecture with a tantalizing assortment of styles, from glistening, minimalist house to dissonant musique concrete to lumpy rhythm studies poised somewhere between Dettinger and Burial.

Whoever Atobe may be—and the promise of an upcoming live debut in Japan suggests that maybe he really is just a reclusive dude—the past few years have found the project definitively revitalized. Since Butterfly Effect, he has released a Ship-Scope reissue, the mini-album World, and the short Rebuild Mix 1.2.3 EP, a remix project in which Atobe’s hand obliterated all traces of the original. From the Heart, It’s a Start, a Work of Art fleshes out his catalog with 40 more minutes of music, and it is uniformly striking stuff. While not as wide-ranging as Butterfly Effect, it is richer and fuller than World, and though it retains ambient music’s atmospheres, it focuses squarely on dancefloor energies while amping up the emotional content.

That’s particularly true of its two most substantial cuts. In “Regret,” bright chords reminiscent of DJ Sprinkles flare over a bare-bones boom-tick rhythm, with hi-hats chirping like crickets. In “Republic,” a flayed open hi-hat suggests peak-time techno at its most severe, yet watery synths and midsection-caressing sub-bass suggest almost shoegaze-like vibes. Both tracks are little more than static loops, all but unchanging over the course of their nearly 10-minute run, yet their hypnotic repetitions and naïve melodies wrap you up in a kind of cocoon.

It’s hard to put your finger on exactly what it is that’s so enveloping, and so moving, about Atobe’s work. Some of it comes down to his tonal sensibility. Like “Rainstick” and “The Red Line,” from his debut EP, his best tracks here seem to emanate a rosy glow, and his chord progressions, simple as they are, are masterful exercises in tension and release. Not everything is such a wistful reverie, though. “The Test of Machine 2” sounds like an etude for melting wind chimes, while “The Test of Machine 1” hammers uneven kick drums over a backdrop of bell tones and mechanical clatter, like a fax machine eating an old Jeff Mills cassette.

For many, the most fascinating material here will be three tracks that build upon the Shinichi Atobe mystery. Before Chain Reaction ever released Ship-Scope, claim Canty and Whittaker, Atobe recorded a three-track EP that was cut to acetate—a vinyl-like material, often used for dubplates, more susceptible to wear and tear than the wax used in commercially released records—in an edition of five. But it was never commercially released until now, having been allegedly remastered directly from one of those crumbling acetates. “First Plate 1” is a luminous dub techno sketch that certainly sounds like it could have been recorded in 2000, with a muted, compressed quality reminiscent of a seventh-generation cassette dub. The vinyl crackle is even thicker and creamier on “First Plate 2,” a deliciously dubby stepper that suggests a more narcotic take on Basic Channel’s Maurizio project. And on “First Plate 3,” surface noise settles over a resonant dub-techno roller like a low mist hugging the countryside.

The story raises more questions than it does answers: Why were only five acetates made, and then no records pressed? Why didn’t they utilize the original master disk for the reissue, or, better, the original DAT or digital file? And why, if they really did work off of such a damaged acetate, did they choose to emphasize all that surface noise, rather than minimizing it? It’s impossible to tell how much of the sound design is intentional, and how much is a result of the alleged remastering process. But as with William Basinski’s The Disintegration Loops or Burial’s “Distant Lights,” the degraded sound quality becomes an integral part of the music’s emotional experience. Wherever and whenever the music has come to us from, it wears all the signs of a great journey. And as with bards of yore, it’s the storytelling, not the veracity of the tale, that keeps us rapt.