Arcade Fire “Wait” “Oh Orpheus”
JJ “Inner Light” “Hold Me” “Be Here Now” “Still” “Things Will Never Be the Same Again” “Golden Virginia”
Strand of Oaks “Plymouth” “Heal” “Shut In”
The New Pornographers “Breakin’ the Law”
Tycho “Awake” “Montana” “L”
Efterklang “The Soft Beating” “Modern Drift”
Bear in Heaven slip into Time Is Over One Day Old this August with the timely track “Autumn” as though in anticipation of that twilit, in-between season. Forget sun-soaked summer records — the group’s most recent offering is all over that ethereal, half-light slow descent into winter. It fits. The kind of music they make — sweeping, epic numbers whose proper fit would seem to be over the opening montage of a Hollywood film — is introspective and loaded with the sorts of instrumental and vocal combinations that tear down the walls that separate reality from fantasy. {read more}
All the usual stuff remains true: content is subject to change, grammar and spelling mistakes are possible, and content references are potentially wrong. With that in mind, enjoy! (And also, yes, that image is from Edge of Tomorrow…such an excellent movie. It should have been mine!)
Bethany scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Who told you that? It’s a total lie.”
“Beth. Come on. This is me. Be honest. We have too much history for lies,” Ghosteye said.
She shrugged and pulled a large elastic off her wrist, which she used to pull her dreadlocks back. “You forgot, then.”
“Forgot what?”
“The day you showed up? That night? We talked in my tent—you knew then what my plan for Ramone was,” she smirked. “I guess the drugs do work.”
“Drugs?”
“Come on, Gale. I gave you some medicine so you could sleep.” She sighed then squeezed his uninjured foot fondly, and looked up at him through her dark eyelashes. It was a bedroom look, and Ghosteye felt his body respond to the possibility of something happening with her. Still? After all this time? She wanted him? Maybe? He couldn’t afford to think it true. Beth went on in a familiar, somewhat playful tone. “I’d forgotten you were such a lightweight. But yeah, Gale, of course I was going to do what’s best for the resistance. If that meant brokering a deal using Ramone, then yes. I guess I was ‘going to betray him.’” She made air quotes and shook her head. “Look. This is war. In war there are casualties, as hard as that is to stomach. I don’t like it. But I also don’t like what our country has become. If we don’t figure something out now, there will be nowhere left to run.”
Ghosteye rubbed his face and pressed his fingers into his eyes where the beginnings of a headache thrummed. The thought of rekindling things with Beth made him hesitate for just a moment. “God, Beth. My god. Look, just, just don’t give me that. This is you, Beth. This is who you’ve become since you left me. Sincerely? The girl who left me over her principles, she wouldn’t recognize this, this person who would simply hand over a man like Ramone. He’s the key to all this. The key to our survival in a changed world—a renewed world. And you would have done that, give him away, without even a trial? I mean, you were his judge. Did you even talk to him?” He shook his head, the disgust of what she’d been willing to do suddenly striking him hard like a punch in the face. His head hurt. God, did it hurt. “You had ideals. What’s become of them?”
Summer is more than half over, but that doesn’t mean there’s no time to discover a fitting summer soundtrack. For next year maybe. Or to round off this one before autumn and winter set in. Either way, Canadian indie rock band Alvvays will still sound good, even in winter. They hail from colder climes — Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton — and somehow have ended up producing music that feels as bright and garish as an afternoon being blinded by the sand and crusted in salt-water like a boiled shrimp. There’s something strangely pleasant about that, no? {read more}
Hey! Yeah, so the baby arrived on June 17th. I’m still recovering because babies are hard work! And recovering from surgery is a total whack job. I mean, really, the hardest part is the emotional surges and overall hormonal drainage. It’s like a hormone vampire came and sucked me dry and now I’m just a husk of a woman.
I’ve been posting pictures of the baby on Instagram, so if you want to see the adorable little tyke and her brother, sign up and follow me! I probably won’t post images here just because it’s kind of off-topic and I prefer to keep them on Instagram at this point.
But anyway, what you’re really here for is the teaser for Feed 2. I’m still not sure about the title, but I’m working hard to figure that out (The Second Feeding [?!]; Fast Feed [!!!] hahaha) and writing as often as I can (the baby is rather fussy, so the going is slower than I would like). I set a draft deadline for July 30. Whether I make it or not is up in the air. I’ll work my arse off, though, you can be sure of that!
Just a note on excerpts: these are generally rough drafts and are subject to change. Details may be wrong at this point because they haven’t been held up to the first book or compared to make sure there are no continuity errors and whatnot. With that in mind, enjoy!
Ramone flexed his throbbing fingers and squeezed his eyes shut. In the black of his brain where he confronted a massive darkness, he could still smell Blythe—her hair tangling around his shoulders as she hovered over him, the delicate flesh of her neck giving off the odor of jasmine . . . or coconut. Something. Ramone was horrible with the names of smells. In his mind he felt her body tense as he whispered—almost soundlessly—his plan into her soft ear. The nanocameras wouldn’t have heard it. He hoped. Once he had known their limitations. Now he was sure things had been pushed past a threshold even he hadn’t imagined.
The zip-tie around his wrist had been removed finally, but now he was stowed in a tiny bunker with a cramped bed, one small lamp on a table attached to the wall, and no way for him to leave without an escort. Staring at the ceiling, he rehearsed the tentative plan he’d told Blythe. Of course it was tentative, not that he told Blythe as much. It wasn’t like he’d been in a position to casually recite his idea, as though over coffee or tea. Not that Ramone was ever casual, he accused himself scornfully, reflecting back on that day in the coffee shop that preceded all this madness. What was it, a week ago? Less maybe? It felt like ten years had passed.
He’d been so nervous that night with Blythe. Even in those precious moments sharing a cot with her, the bumbling fool still hovered in the corner of his mind, mocking him and belittling his abilities as a lover and his capacity as a man.
Assuming that plan he’d shared with Blythe wasn’t tentative, he mentally worked on what he’d need to do to achieve the ends he desired. There was something he’d done from the very beginning, a safety device he’d programmed into his creation. Whether or not it remained, he couldn’t say. The nanocameras had become something so different from his initial vision. But if the design still followed his own concept, then there was hope. And if not, perhaps there was still a reason to hope.
If Ramone held his breath, he could hear, almost feel the hum of the building. Though it remained to be seen if this was the building, the throbbing feel of some kind of heartbeat coursing through the walls made him believe that it was. Was it the nest, like he hoped?
A scuffling sound at the door made Ramone sit up expectantly. When it opened and revealed the Director, he let the breath out that he’d unconsciously been holding.
“Come with me,” the frog-lipped man said.
Boom! Scary! Yeah! There’s more where that came from if you stick around.
Answer: for me, no.
I’ve been trying to work out a plot for Feed 2. Or Feed 2.0
Feed, an Addendum.
Feed, the Followup.
FEED THE REVOLUTION.
Also working on a name. Because Feed 2 is lame. Suggestions welcome.
The problem is that I’m to the point in this pregnancy where I can’t sit comfortably. I’m worse than Jabba the Hut right now, as in, I have to sit at an angle in a normal chair just so I’m not crunching my stomach up into my esophagus.
Here’s something you never think about until you experience pregnancy yourself — the huge bulge in your torso is NOT flexible . . . you know, like how fat is? So pregnant women are not obese. Fat moves around and changes shape like some kind of amazing product that hasn’t been invented yet, but if it were, it would totally revolutionize important things like couches and beds and bird’s nests and whatnot.
If you need to bend over to pick up a toy car that you just stepped on because you didn’t see it (limited visibility due to huge stomach) or to clean up cat vomit or whatever totally normal items you often have to pick up off the carpet, your belly shifts all your internal organs up into your chestal region, where you nearly 1) stop your heart; 2) break your rib cage; 3) annihilate your lungs; 4) burn your esophagus with the heat of ten suns that comes from your natural stomach acid. Normally stomach acid is an awesome thing because it aids in digestion and other life-saving techniques known only to wise medical doctors, shamans, and nutritionists. The usual.
But right now, I curse stomach acid with the strength of one hundred ripped gladiators from the Roman gladiator era. They can raise their swords to my stomach acid right now, and I really wish they would. Currently, I sound like a smoker in both my husky, dry voice and persistent cough. People love thinking that a very pregnant woman is a smoker. You should see the glares I get . . .
But hey! The cough comes from kicks from the baby and the shortness of breath and raspy voice come from stomach acid spurting up into my throat.
Where was I going with this? I got off on a whining tangent….
Oh yeah. I can hardly be expected to sit and plot out a book. I’m trying. But my thoughts persistently wander forward in time to the joy I’ll feel the day the baby is healthy and on the outside of me.
How can I think about things like, “What would be really awesome? I mean, as this chapter ends, what would be freaking thrilling to read next, if I were a reader? A sudden betrayal! A knife in the back! A twist! That would rock!” Thoughts like those are interrupted by a baby foot in my rib. Yeah, who could have ever conceived of propagating the race like this?! Babies in bodies!! I mean, why not do it the way kangaroos do it? That would be so much easier!
But no. It’s like nature felt that the best way to further the species would be to torture women for almost a year. I hate you nature…
I have moments where I can really visualize the story, but I’m not usually in a position where I can write it out. It’s usually when I’m driving in a daze or showering or laying in bed, unable to sleep (and move), and therefore not in a literal position to get it out on paper, so to speak. Moving quickly is not one of the strengths of an extremely pregnant woman.
I know it’s weird that I can manage a blog post here and there and music reviews this pregnant, but they don’t require a marathon of daydreaming, or whatever you want to label plotting. Writing a book is more like that and less of a jaunt into someone else’s artistic work and what makes it good.
The worst case scenario will be that I have the baby and don’t care to write books, like, ever again.
Oh my hell! WHY WOULD THAT HAPPEN?
And why did I even imagine it for a second? Total idiot, here.
Breathe. Breathe.
It’s fine. It’s fine. That won’t happen.
I’m soooooo not superstitious. This is all going to be OK.
Who here thinks “400 Lux” is a better song that “Royals”? Raise your hand! Yeah!
And Beck’s “Heart is a Drum”! Total save. Everything’s going to be OK. Yeah. Really OK. Follow the drum, dude.
If you’re wondering where I’ve been, I’ll tell you. I’ve been off being a hero. No, a saint. A real unselfish creature.
Except all the times when I’m grumpy and ornery and selfish…
Anyway, sometime in June, we’re expecting a new arrival. Oh man. I sound like some kind of 1950s ad, avoiding the insinuation that I had sex and am, *gasp* pregnant!
But really, yeah, a baby. A baby girl. So as some people might understand, pregnancy is no leisurely stroll through the park. It’s total misery. For me anyway, which is why I’m a saint. Because EVERY woman who goes through pregnancy is a saint. I honestly have no idea how some ladies do this four or five times.
And I’d like to punch those ladies who have easy pregnancies. What’s the deal with that? Some weird fluke of evolution? Because I’ll tell you, it’s not like that for me. No. During the first trimester I basically want to kill myself. I can barely eat. Everything stinks. I get a little crazy and I hate everyone.
Second trimester is a bit better, but still a nightmare because clothes don’t fit and I start to look like a swollen beast. And I’m still moody.
Third trimester I want to kill myself again. By this time, I haven’t felt like myself for ALMOST A YEAR. I want to punch my husband half the time and there are moments when if he comes NEAR me at all, I might claw his face off. Especially if he’s eaten something like garlic recently. And I take that personally, usually. Because he KNOWS things smell stronger than normal and there he goes engaging in some type of passive aggressive war where he eats garlic! Why!? (Not rational, I know. Pregnancy-induced irrationality, that’s my excuse).
During the entire pregnancy I have extreme ligament pain (WTF? Seriously. It’s like I pulled a muscle in my groin the entire time!) and that dysgeusia thing where there’s constantly a bad taste in my mouth–metal or something worse depending on what I’ve eaten (cardboard, if I ate some Cheerios because I crave them constantly). That’s a real fun one. Imagine, if you will and you’ve never been pregnant, not being able to eat certain things because of bad aftertastes. Murder. Pure murder.
Yes. I know. First world problem. I should just be thankful I’m not forced to boil grass for nutrients. That sounds kind of good right now. Boiled grass. Or just grass chopped up with some olive oil, lemon juice, and salt. I could go for that right now. Throw in maybe a couple of grape tomatoes and chopped avocado and you’ve got yourself a stew (salad, but I couldn’t resist the Carl Weathers reference).
So. That’s why I call myself a hero and a saint. Because I was stupid enough to think that pregnancy once more was a good idea. Sure, sure. The minute I see the baby, I’ll think it was all worth it. But right now, my life has been on hold since the first second I got sick during the first trimester.
I haven’t been able to focus, let alone write. In fact, I suspended sales of Boat Made of Bone because I got so slammed by reviewers that I figure it must suck ass. But can I tell? No. Because my brain is scrambled by pregnancy hormones. So thank you, pregnancy.
And yes, it’s harder than crap to not feel immense amounts of pressure to perform. I watch other indie-writers shooting up the charts and developing their followings and whatnot and I cringe in frustration. I can barely manage to deal with being the size of a lopsided whale AND taking care of my almost-3-year-old, let alone sit in a chair (ligament pain!) and brainstorm the plot to a super interesting book where robots evolve into guardians of the humans against swarms of zombies. I hate that book already. I hate zombies. And robots would never deserve to be mere guardians of humans. I’m not going to write it.
That’s what I mean! I can’t plot while pregnant. It’s impossible. Because the only thing that matters is getting through this shit-time. Once I have my body back…hold on world. Just you hold on. I will rain blood and destruction down upon your heads and the heads of your children.
Wait. That sounded like a curse…
What I really mean is that I’ll be myself again. I’ll be able to eat. I’ll be able to move. I’ll be able to get out of a sitting or laying position without my pelvic floor being crushed into the equivalent of a fine-grain salt, and then I’ll be able to sleep and my husband will smell good to me again and patience will be restored and when my son does something ridiculous like throwing a roll of toilet paper into the toilet, I’ll be able to laugh (inwardly) and move on. Kids! I’ll say. Aren’t they cute?
Right now things aren’t super cute. Because it’s usually a major mess that I can barely bend over to clean up.
Crap. I hate being pregnant.
But still. My son is totally adorable. I just wish I could ENJOY it a tad more.
Anyway, I just wanted to update everyone. Feel free to suggest girl names in the comments. I’m really struggling with names. I’m the worst at picking names.
p.s. Once the babe is born, I’ll launch full speed into Feed 2. That is, if the plot I’ve come up with isn’t total crap. I won’t know till I’m not pregnant any more.
The new Wye Oak is perfect! Here’s a teaser from my review over at Treblezine:
“Tracks like ‘Before,’ ‘Shriek,’ and ‘Sick Talk’ effervesce in pleasant waves of synths and drum loops. Wasner’s vocals carry sunlight and hope as she muses about being reborn and emerging from a dream brand new. Shriek is the brighter side, the payoff. It’s the antithesis of Civilian, where the themes and tones were shadowy and dark, constructed of half-light and driving guitars and drums, all of it designed around the concept of suppressed emotion, blunted desire and regret.” [Read More…]
One spin from S. Carey’s new offering, Range of Light, and a complex, layered, work of art unfolds that meanders somewhere between shadow and sun. Christened after John Muir’s name for the Sierra Nevada mountain range, Carey’s second album pulls off “sophomore album” like a professional student repeating a grade.
It begins on the highest possible note, holding nothing back, stripping bare Carey’s most personal thoughts with “Glass/Film.” There’s something confessional and private about the track, yet confident in delivery, which prevents any unease we might have as listeners: “In the glass / see your face / I know this place / I’ve called the case / I was made for this / I was tamed by this.” Though it’s most likely named after composer Philip Glass, it’s hard not to speculate as to whether the moment Carey has captured is related to his becoming a father over the course of the composition of Range of Light. Careful percussion creates a satisfying, complex echo-like chamber as sounds seem to bounce off of each other. Layered instruments and vocals combine as though to signify an awakening. [Read More]