‘The imagination creates false memories,’ Richard Garcia read from his poem, ‘The Moon,’ to begin the evening. Created, imagined memories were the essence of Garcia’s reading on February 21st in the Union ballroom at SUNY Brockport. ‘Sometimes a whole poem of mine is a dream,’ he said. ‘I write when I’m dreaming sometimes.’
Read full work »
Three layers of black curtains, menacingly vaginal, adorn the Hartwell Dance Theater’s stage, along with four stools, the sort featuring backs and armrests. Having not seen or heard a line from The Vagina Monologues, and almost oppressively aware of my gender (male), I only know I’m expecting to hear the word with frequency. ‘Vagina.’ It will be a tendency throughout the evening to wonder how altered my perceptions are because it is this play, and none other, that I am witnessing. If it were, say, Our Town or Death of Salesman, the black curtains might not seem so vaginal. (And also, at least consciously, menacing.)
Read full work »
Uneven but satisfying, CYHSY’s second LP, Some Loud Thunder, while harboring its assortment of dullards, is nevertheless intent on achieving a pleasant groove, at once evocatively wistful and danceable. Even the jejune here features tempo changes and melodic shifts which remind the listener that things are happening, evolving, moving on this record.
Read full work »
There is a French version of Little Red Riding Hood in which the wolf tricks the girl into eating her grandmother, calls her (LRRH) a slut, and then eats her. This must be the version Isobel Campbell grew up with. Milk White Sheets, her new LP, is as dark as it is lovely and traipses through the forest like the grimmest fairy tale, all too aware of what it is up to.
Read full work »
Sonic Youth’s outtakes collection, The Destroyed Room, the band’s first outtakes release, is a rewarding listen considering the band didn’t think these ten songs worthy of a record. The enthusiastic bombast of the band’s ability to just stand still for five, ten minutes at a time still marvels. (Though I can envision my father, exasperated at the sometimes motionless drone, quoting me lines from Pink Floyd’s ‘Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast,’ which he heard eight years ago, never to be forgotten.)
Read full work »
Perhaps it’s accurate to claim that if you’ve heard one Explosions in the Sky album you’ve heard them all, but it’s not necessarily a criticism. While I could not pick an EITS song out of a lineup (barring those with give-away samples) it doesn’t alter the music’s effectiveness. The loud/soft, build to a climax and then break it all down again format the band employs, while predictable, is nonetheless engaging and cathartic.
Read full work »