Oh James, I Know You Well

 Oh James, you broke me. I thought I knew you well.

 

Laugh at the wonder of it all. Laugh so loud you break your fall and you hear the gathering sounds.  Leave your bones, leave your skin. Leave your past, leave your craft. Leave your suffering heart.  Come, dip on in. 

Camera Obscura: James (2009 Live Radio Session)

James: Sound

Sure, Ok Yeah

It's the artists, the musicians, the visionaries, the weirdos, the deep thinkers and feelers who draw down the moon and bring in the light.  This song is bringing me back online after a prolonged downward spiral.  

Little indie band of whom I know nothing about from Portland Oregon that I randomly heard on this Friday night when I wasn't actively seeking.  Or maybe I was and we found each other.  Collided more like because this is the literal mood. Breakdown or breakthrough?  I don't know, whatever this is, it's not yet done birthing itself but this song is helping and tonight, my friends, that's all I want. 

Sure - Be Myself (released February 9th 2025)

It sure takes a lot to be myself. 

Well sure I forgot about how to be myself. 

Step inside this hell. 

Something's out of reach. 

Ignis Fatuus

Twenty years connected. 

Twenty years the push, pull, hello goodbye, yes and no. 

Twenty years, the passion.

Twenty years, trying to understand what begets cruelty.

Twenty years, found when hidden.

Twenty years, a haunted halfway house. 

Twenty years of these stupid little crumbs. 

Twenty years of dangled apologies. 

Twenty years of warnings. 

Twenty years of maybes. 

Twenty years of possible regrets.

Twenty years of trying to be everything.

Twenty years trying to prove. 

Twenty years, an oath.

One year of actual truth. 

One year processing an untruth.  A narrative buried so deep, it is cemented in ore. 

One year, the fall out.

One year stubborn, willful.  I am here. I am real. I am genuine. 

One year holding breath, tensing, still giving.

No more years. 

Realization: playacting with ignis fatuus.

Glass is too benign to describe those shards, the unraveling, the vacuum, the blank space. 

No more blood or bone sacrifices. No more balmy water for tears or devotion. 

I am not the villain and never was. 

You were my twin moon. You were my songs.  

This is a death I can't even mourn openly.  

How do I tell the world I became half, severed?  

I sat a version of shiva alone because there is no recognition or bereavement when you mourn a wraith, a trickster who hides behind many masks. 

Instead, blame and sharpness. "You should have known better. You're stuck."  

My fault again. 

But oh how I delighted in that game! 

There is no burial. No Body.  No final resting place to leave behind.

For what you have stolen from me, I do not forgive. 

For believing in you, I will find a way to forgive myself.

And one day revel in the wicked delight that you and I are different.  And it is those differences that offer me life. 

Embedded: Bat For Lashes, All Your Gold 

You Always Were Two Steps Ahead

The irony of the desert's tragedy is that it supposes it needs to be made whole with rain. Yes, the monsoon brings life to the otherwise seemingly desolate landscape. Flowers flourish, lakes pool and the wildlife embraces it all. But in that watery union the desert loses its quiet windy beauty and whispering dune mysteries. The desert experiences oasis for a time but it doesn't need it. It has learned to thrive without the rain. Maybe the desert thrives on romantic desolate arid beauty but has evolved in strange wondrous ways to desire flippant and willful rain. 

This is such a twisted albeit simplistic metaphor for our human obsession with contrarian love. Maybe the desert and the rain are better as they are. Maybe they enjoy being their own separate worlds, even "happily" in their own prisons, quietly desperately desiring union. You tell me. I think you're a liar, the saddest most tragic kind. The one that doesn't realize they've lied to themselves until it's beyond midnight.

 

 Embedded: Everything But The Girl - Missing ///  Gigi Perez - Glue

The Todd Terry Remix is my beyond favorite and no one can tell me differently. 

Let Them Bleed

Seems  like a good song to round out this year with, don't you think?  Cheerful, jolly mad red sounds. 

 

Embedded: Tori Amos Precious Things (Live)

And I died. 

But I thanked him, can you believe that? 

Sick. 

These precious things?  Let them bleed, let them wash away.  

These precious things, let them break their hold on me. 

Blue on Blue

This. This is my soft spot. Blue on blue. A coquettish lambent moth fluttering in a Lynchian dream.  Those precious night creatures. 

IG: saccharinesylphs 

2024: A Playlist Poem

No fanfare... just me posting a poignant poem based solely on song lyrics from my 2024 playlist. Imagine a slightly emo Dadaist approach to an end of year shenans and then you've got it. It's intense, dramatic, bleak and dripping with romance. Would you expect anything less from me? 

When you wear the same face every day, worried you might have a small hole in your soul.

We’ll be fine, just take your time whichever way you go. 

Another goodbye now, on and on. Dream Keeper, my dream keeper. 

If we are infinite and there’s no end, I hope you live. 

Doing what you say like a hund, hund, hund. Ich weiss, Ich weiss, Ich weiss! Das ist alles für mich. 

You push it hard, I pull away, I’m feeling hotter than fire. I guess no one ever made me feel that much higher. 

Oh. It’s our history. Everyone wants you to be something you’ll never be. 

I can’t have it all and I wouldn’t want to. 

This is gonna be a weird record.

How else can it be proven to you that I’m devout? I spill right out. 

I wonder how a gap can feel this much. How a gap can feel that something this big. How it multiples in my veins and my blood and how it triggers itself in my thoughts. I’d like to be your beautiful hell. 

When the tides turn elsewhere, I shall give myself to the moment somewhere. I am ever crashing, just waiting for you to pull me out. 

I’m sanctified in my lover’s eyes. No way around it, no way to fight. A pull too strong. Don’t try to forfeit, the way is through. If you deny death, you deny life. Let it suffer, let it shine. What must be severed, left behind?

I have my sentence now at last I know just how you felt. I dig my fingers in expecting more than just the skin. 

I can’t wait to consecrate this wondrous mess. Words unforgotten until we sing again. Start at the bottom and then we descend.  

She tries to understand a never never land.

Scantily clad woman. Scantily clad man.

Wanna kiss you all over, wanna eat you up! 

I lost my way in the fire. I am a moth to the flame. Dancing too close to desire. To feel again.

Could this be a life without love, without loss? When you met me, buried deep in my heart… Heavy metal.

Don’t ever put me on the moon again. Don’t ever see the moon again.

Me repugna esta sociedad.

While you are still alive, do not let your soul fade away. 

I’m gonna win this game. 

When the rage in me subsides, in this white wave I am sinking. In this silence. In this white wave, in this silence, I believe.

Forever is just a waste of time. You live, you work, you die.

You never stop, you never stop.

You broke my heart, it came in two. It was an accident, I didn’t mean it.

I’ve tried to fight this but you are my weakness. Pull back your eyelids, I’m lost in your iris.

It fills my wombs with a poisoned wine 

It blinds my eyes with a veil of dark

It feeds my heart with a filthy blood

It grows inside me like the devil’s son

It burns inside me like a blazing soul

It sucks my life out of every bone

It blurs the truth with insane lies

It can’t be fought, ‘cause it keeps me alive

This anger in my veins makes me suffocate.

Are you alright?

I’ve got no feelings anymore. The evenings slide from being bored. No gleaming past or future formed. I run solo. I run to what I know. 

It all started with a shiver. Just a little touch. 

What if it’s not meant for me, love?

A thousand people I could be for you and you hate the fucking lot.

Because you know my ways now. There’s a phoenix fire burning in my house and it’s melting me down. 

I think my kink is when you tell me that you think I’m pretty. 

Bring your shadow into the light. Meet my lover on an astral plane.

You wrote my favorite song, now I’m fucked up and carrying on. And it hits me, I don’t want anyone else touching you like I do.

Stop, go, fast, slow. Who can deny this perfect symmetry?

If you walk through the flames, do you catch fire? And too much has already been said. 

I get so frightened and no one else seems frightened. Only me.

One ticket out of your heavy gaze, I want one ticket off of your carousel. 

So no thanks, I’m politely declining.

And a lust for life keeps me alive. 

This isn’t a party, it’s a crime scene.

I must have died a thousand times.

I don’t like the way you run your mouth, no more letting secrets out. 

You've got secrets too. 

Very moody, yeah, yeah, yeah! Very up, down and all around baby. 

You can bite the sound apple here: CTST 2024 Love Letter Playlist 

TRACK LIST: 

The Clean - In the Dreamlife U Need a Rubber Soul

La Luz - Strange World

The Veldt - The Everlasting Gobstopper

BLACKSHAPE - Itiiitiatiihylihyl

Schnallo - Ich Weiss

Lana Del Rey - West Coast

Gliss - 21st Century

Miya Folick & Skinny Atlas - Can't Have It All

The Saxophones - Desert Flower

Gigi Perez - Please Be Rude 

Adna - Beautiful Hell

SRSQ - Ever Crashing

Chelsea Wolfe - Tunnel Lights

The Last Dinner Party - Nothing Matters

Devendra Banhart - Won't You Come Over

Beach House - Once Twice Melody

Haute & Freddy - Scantily Clad

Vicious Pink Phenomena - Take Me Now

deary - The Moth

Cindy Lee - Heavy Metal

Tim Presley - Morris

Jonathan Hulten - Afterlife

Kontravoid - Losing Game (ft Chelsey Crowley)

Delirium - Silence (ft Sarah McLachlan)

The Mad Walls - Television

TR/ST - Dark Day

Virgin Prunes - Baby Turns Blue

Aurat - (Language Unknown) 

Sidewalks and Skeletons - Slip Away

Pastel Ghost - Iris

Minuit Machine - Black Is My Anger

Modern Heaven - Midnight Cowboy

TR/ST - Run (ft Cecile Believe)

Fever Ray - Shiver

Wolf Alice - Don't Delete the Kisses

Lola Young - Messy

Warpaint - Melting

Blondshell - Kiss City

Say She Say - Astral Plane

Del Water Gap - Ode to a Conversation Struck in Your Throat

Jessie Ware - What's Your Pleasure?

SDH Semiotics Department of Heteronyms - Lovers Wonder

Strawberry Switchblade - Trees and Flowers 

Bleachers - Merry Christmas, Please Don't Call

Bea & Her Business - Safety Net

Lana Del Rey - Lust For Life

Male Tears - This Party Ends in Tears

The Chameleons - Less Than Human

Geneva Jacuzzi - Keep It Secret 

Röyksopp - What Else Is There? 

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fleez

Windows

Does anyone actually blog anymore?  I miss it so much - discovering what people are actually without knowing what their faces look like or how many followers they have. The adrenaline junkie visual world has replaced this seemingly simplistic verbal world with static two dimensional images... and if we're lucky embedded audio images. 

This vociferous hungry visual organ and its equally greedy eye machine ... are we its godparent or is it a part of us?  I think we should go analog... totally. 

I love this something awful, because it's beautifully true and we need to cherish that. 

Narcissism Is Not Empathy

It's Jean Cocteau's birthday.  He's been dead for awhile.  

Life is a horizontal fall. 
I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little they become its visible soul. 
Mirrors should think longer before they reflect 




Moaning is what you need.  Truly.

I'm Still Undone

Earlier this week I saw Orville Peck live in concert, after waiting for four moons.  One of my dear friends gave me a ticket four months ago on my birthday.  But four moons sounds so much lonelier.... languishing in the desert for four long moons.  See?  It works.

Since then, listening to anything else has proven more than difficult.  I tried TR/ST The Destroyer Part 1, in preparation for The Destroyer Part 2 coming out next month and was even tempted by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds' Ghosteen but I just can't yet.  Even when I try, I'm only half listening.  In between recorded tracks, wisps and phrases of Orville's songs just continue to reverberate and haunt me across those moonlit mind deserts.



Hope to Die is my dark night of the soul track but there are so many standout gems.  Dead of Night.  Winds Change.  Roses are Falling.  Queen of the Rodeo.  Turn to Hate.  Buffalo Run.  Kansas (Remembers Me Now).

Pony is a truly a phenomenal debut album.

I'd like to say, for the record, how happy I am that a masked incognito gay cowboy crooning in beautiful vibrato baritone with tenor to soprano soaring swoons about homoerotic dark nights of the soul and transvestite Queens of the desert is making waves and winning over people by the hundreds of thousands.  The world needs him.  I need him.  Also, his whistling prowess is tear slash whoop worthy.

At the concert, he said several times how a song was about SOLIDARITY.  Yes, love, it is.  Thank you.

**Edit: New Order Age of Consent and Fleetwood Mac Gypsy caught me on my sojourn into the world tonight, so maybe there's hope for me. *winking riding a horse into the sunset emoji

Call Me By Your Name

The other night I watched Call Me By Your Name. It's been out for some time but I'm late, as usual.  Have you seen it?  It really touched me, deeply.  

I felt so much after watching it - like I had wondered into a room inside myself I haven't been to in a long time.  Even now, days later, I still can't quite put my finger on the emotions it evokes, it really was more of a sense of solid self.  An entity, a force and presence.  And in this room, she was a breathing part of the ether who lives and exists all on her own, without me.  She needs neither my permission or my approval, in fact, she/It are unaware of such notions.

There is only this love, this connection to oneself, others, food, nature.  It is so intimate too, soft and tender, breathing pink rainy mists of vulnerability.  Without fear of reprisal or shame. 

And since then, for three days I have only been able to listen to one song.  It's from the soundtrack and it's by Sufjan Stevens, who is someone in the past I was resistant to.  I think maybe because it reminds me of Elliot Smith and that's a sad thing.  Regardless, for days, it's the only thing I could stomach as I let the tears fall. As I stayed curled up in that pink misty room inside myself.  

Nature has cunning ways of finding our weakest spots.

Machiavellian Aliens

This is what happens when New York based Gen Z trust fund part-time models decide to make "glam rock".

I hate myself a little for kind of crushing on it.  I said kind of.

Wild Is The Wind

Twinging... just there.  And with it a dash of provocation.  Building on something, something very dear.

Two of my favorite versions of this song, gifts from those gone ahead.  We can feel ourselves, in our decaying bodies, in the dreams behind us and the lessening tomorrows.



David Bowie



Nina Simone 

Holiday

The dreamy vibes continue... this track quenches everything.



Released June/July 2018 via Snowstar Records here.

Per their site:
Donna Blue is a collaboration between Danique van Kesteren and Bart van Dalen, both each other's muse, lover and band member.  The creative duo plays sultry indie pop, under the influence of sixties ye, ye, Lynch movies and old Hollywood romance - perfect for practicing those slow dance moves.

<3 p="">

Happy Pills

For fans of Japancakes, here is a little Japanese bedroom indie dream pop.  It's exactly what you think it is. - comfortable and chill, like pajamas with fun prints.






Released August 1, 2018 so you're right on time.

hearts x

This Means Nothing To Me

Something resembling fall is flirting with us; where in these humid swampy bits, any days with temperatures in the mid 60-70s mean many pull out their sweaters (and in some cases down jackets), I'm just content to not be melting into a viscous pool of salt.

Still as lovely as it is, lately I only long for mountains and wide, pristine open spaces crisp with frost.  Preferably the kind next to towns with bustling night lives where you can enjoy a cocktail and feast on the dreamy eye candy.  But, that might be asking for too much.



April Stevens // Teach Me Tiger // 1959



Ultravox // Vienna // 1980-1981

High Heeled Moss

So many artists and music tracks I'd like to share with you but I'm in the middle of a maelstrom, moving house and living out of boxes.

Here's a little precious gouter to tide you over.  What do you think of the art direction?  I'm torn between wonderment and excited schadenfreude to something else, something uncomfortable.  A lot of comments have already been made comparing this to The Knife, but I suppose I've never separated Honey is Cool, The Knife or Fever Ray as separate entities.  For me, that would be akin to divorcing one period of an artist's repertoire from the others.  It's all one glorious journey.   That said, I do find myself drawn to one or the other, depending on my mood.



Fever Ray // To The Moon And Back // 2017

Concurrently, this gem is very relevant to me and I hum a few key lines over and over, Tourette's style.



Fever Ray // When I Grow Up // Fever Ray // 2009

When I grow up
I want to be a forester
Run through the moss on high heels
That's what I'll do
Throwing out a boomerang
Waiting for it to come back to me

When I grow up
I want to live near the sea
Crab claws and bottles of rum
that's what i'll have
Starting at a seashell
Waiting for it to embrace me

(Honorable mentions: here, here, here, here  ... amongst others)

In The Stars, Child

When ice cream for dinner and piracy are the only solutions. Repeat, repeat, repeat

Robert Smith // Pirate Ships // Disintegration (Wendy Waldman cover) // 2010 Deluxe Edition

Feel Better

Dearest void.  Two seasons have passed since I've ventured into these parts, though I've thought about making a pit stop several times. .

The past few months have seen me vacillating between intense periods of introverted seclusion, concocting the makings of a brand new life and setting into motion the pawns and stratagems of something utterly whole and different versus returning to the familiar strut and hunt, shaking out the solitary cobwebs and engaging in general mayhem.

Only to discover those quiet spaces I've created sustain me in ways I never allowed them to do previously.  As the luminous Kate Bush croons in this gorgeous live performance, "I've been out before. But this time it's much safer in."

As it turns out, breathing and finding comfort in one's own company and in the quiet spaces between yourself and your past holds its own treasured adventures.  The longings change; morphing into something less desperate and depraved.  And when you drink from that reservoir, the tiny fractured crevasses begin to heal.  Simple perhaps, but when you come from a chaotic wilderness, half beast, half woman - simplicity is a foreign language.

So... I guess what I'm trying to say, is that I feel better than I've felt in a long time.  Longer than I can remember... or maybe I've never been here before.  Sometimes, I'm frightened.  Frightened of losing the identity I've spent years carefully crafting, frightened of what stripping away that artifice will reveal.

No surprises then that this track has been on regular rotation.



Blue Shoes // Better // 1980 // Fervor Records

Fractal Prisons

It's one of those uber meta Lame weekends.  Reading about Soviet Soviet's lame experience attempting to enter the US to perform at KEXP, SXSW and some other shows and their subsequent detainment, imprisonment and deportation just tops this really shitty lame cake.

I'm going through it in a super quantum way.  Which sounds probably way more dramatic than I intend but you all know, that's my special super hero power.



Soviet Soviet // Going Through // Endless // 2016

Pay no attention to me.  I'll just be sitting here stewing on how much I hate everyone and everything.

But do check out these guys.  They're the opposite of lame.

Wands Is Just Another Name

Even if it curses.  Even if it smarts.  Nothing is forever, Fay Ray taught me this.  Embrace your wickedness.  These guests, so sickly and vindictive.

Gold Zebra - Love, French, Better - 2014

The Juiciest Juice

Remember the heady whirlwind month of July featuring Dreamboat?  Let's splash around in a brief recap.  In order of events:  July Part I, July Part II, July Part III, July Part IV, July Part V, July Part VI and the subsequent ridiculous backlash and backsliding into the train wreck Lost Boy that comprised August.  Culminating in spending the better part of Autumn trying to piece myself back together in true CTST dramatic fashion convinced I would wander the earth alone.  And probably be happier for it.  Anger, Wanderlust, Not Giving a Fuck.

All caught up?  Dreamboat, being of the Scorpion ilk, charms, cajoles, and confuses me into abject capitulation every single time.  He resurfaced in November, like some sort of sexy groundhog, pillaged the fields for his birthday and submerged himself once more.  Since then, quite randomly and rather humorously, he pops up like one of those Wack-a-mole games at shitty arcades with virtual words so tempting and beguiling.  Words, words, words.  My Achilles heel but so ephemerally flimsy.  Still... there are some people that have that knack for crawling inside to secrete their essences into your cells.  Sleeper clones, lying in wait to rekindle the bloom.

It's bloomed, this decadent viral herpetic romance.  Bamboozled yet again!  We spent ten glorious hours together, touching on all those sappy cliches I adore.  Picnic in the park, snarkily laughing at the half naked Yoga Man, resplendent in a man bun exhibiting undoubtedly psychedelic inspired dance moves to unheard music, and soaking up the sunshine with side-splittingly easy camaraderie.  All perfectly platonic, of course.  Twice bitten, I've learned my lesson.   Or so I thought.  Then come those kryptonian flowing champagne words.  Silvery tongued and so hypnotically rapturous, laden with charmingly awkward regretful expressions, languid deliciousness and promises there will be no more Peter Pan disappearances into the ether.

Can snake charmers ever truly sleep soundly? My own inner snake reincarnated and lies coiled, poised with panther tail twitching, ever alert and watchful.  In the months following his strangely familiar, frustratingly obvious repetitious oddities, I did what any self respecting autonomous individual should.  Created and dove into a life that I really love, finally accepting that something broken requires only acknowledgment, not repair.  Once clefted, the stones's job is finished.  It is now the microcosms purpose to wriggle and perform the dance.

Perhaps it is possible for two snakes to bewitch each other into submission briefly and then go their separate ways once the morning heat begins to singe delicate scales.  Meaning, we can rationalize just about anything we choose in order to satiate those other needs.  Returning to lick the acidic juice again and again.


Broadcast // Corporeal // Tender Buttons // 2005
Do that to me.  Do that to my anatomy.

(Try to catch the video version created by Wonder Mundle)


Cocteau Twins // Those Eyes, That Mouth // Love's Easy Tears // 1986
This is everything.


Still Corners // Don't Fall in Love // Don't Fall in Love/Wish 7" // 2011


Still Corners // Beginning to Blue // Strange Pleasures // 2013

Can't hold my breath for long
Baby blue... your eyes are deeper than the oceans go
Tell me love, is there hope?

Bacchus' Palace

Another sunset kisses the stars.  Seems like just last week, we said goodbye to The Chapman Family.  For awhile, I comforted myself with the saccharine affability of pseudo connections since Kingsley and I were linked on social media but that sunset happened too.  Now, it's time to say goodbye to Kingsley's most recent project, The Murder as they've just announced their second to last show. Remember them?



It's a grey day and I've recently said goodbye to a lot of other things in the last couple of weeks.  So, what's one more?

Their silhouettes, proud and aberrant.  All dancing and swapping saliva somewhere anyway.  

WOMAN

It's hard to believe a month has passed since I ventured into these parts.  The dailies have consumed me with all that it can entail plus the likes of adopting a new kitten, re-homing said kitten, accepting the trials of anxiety, and dealing with a nasty pothole that attempted to eat my car which, I wryly joked, was singing this delightful Ministry song.



Ministry // Revenge // With Sympathy // 1983

Also, the world has gone utterly bonkers and I no longer recognize my country.

Currently, my listening tastes are soooo wildly disparate (fitting the schizoid climate in which we find ourselves), I'm not sure how to post about them.  So without much fanfare, here are just a few.



Angel Olsen // Woman // My Woman // 2016
A popular choice, for sure, but digging deeper into her third album, besides the poptastic Shut Up and Kiss Me track, you'll find several gems though it's this moody 7 minute opus that is really doing it for me. Contemplative perfection

I dare you to understand
What makes me a woman



Broadcast // Ominous Cloud // Haha Sound // 2003
There has yet to be a moment that Trish Keenan's beautiful voice doesn't make better.  This track is so very fitting right now.

I've got to get away
From this town, don't want to face
The ominous clouds

Be myself and learn to face 
The ominous clouds

PJ Harvey // This is Love // Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea // 2000

Because, Polly Jean.

I can't believe that life's so complex
When I just want to sit here and watch you undress

Ohhhh... look at that!  There's a theme here after all, funny how that works. xo 

Allegory of Winter

Does a day really make a difference, those 24 little hours?  Do people actually wake up and become that which they wish they were in the last twelve months at the start of a new year?  I suppose it gives people hope and inspiration or merely provides that strange comfort demarcating the threshold and passage of time can offer.   No matter.  Whatever gets you through the day, sweetheart.

I find it utterly intoxicating... not the booze, lights or glitter of a moment but that spark of recognition.  When you see art or hear music that illustrates the colors of your own dreams.. the sounds in your own head.  That to me is what I get up for, why I keep up the charade of every day life.  For that precious moment when you and the piece are one... at the risk of sounding trite, the moment when you know you are not alone.  

Someone else was haunted by that color, that image, that sound.  They laid awake at night drowning in their desire for expression; waited for its writhing birth into light and spirit.  Sometimes, I think, that's why people crave physical relationships.  It is their longing to have their Other highlight what scurries furtively around inside them, begging for an audience.  Craving to be seen.  That is pain. That is prison.  A treasure, a blessing and a curse. 

My paradox is uncomfortably banal.  Whilst craving others' company, I am almost immediately disappointed by it.  So this is where I shall stay, until Geppetto grants me my wish.  Suspended between these two realities in a body that increasingly feels less and less real.

Remedios Varo is a saint.  Her work is salvation. (click any image for larger slideshow)

Lowlife

I spent the last two days at the second annual Day for Night - a local (possibly soon to be franchised) light, sound and music festival that changes venues every year.  Last year New Order headlined, if you recall. This year it was held in a closed down post-office and warehouse space built in 1962 and designed by the architect who built the Astrodome.

Music acts included Chelsea Wolfe, Lower Dens, Blonde Redhead (who cancelled due to flight/weather conditions), Liars, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Bjork (dj set), Matmos, Arca, Aphex Twin and many many more.  Light and art installations by Michael Fullman/VT Pro, Tundra, Limb, Nonotak, Damien Echols, Shoplifter etc.

I'm completely knackered so my festival stories will have to wait.  Taking today to just absorb the blessed solitude after 48 hours of sensory overload and listening to a much needed palate cleanser.

Lowlife, such a blissful respite.



Lowife // Ramafied // Diminuendo  // 1987 (2006 Reissue)
Also available on: From a Scream to a Whisper, 1990



Lowlife // Wild Swan // Permanent Sleep // 1986

Your Pretty Little Face

Current mood and also style inspiration.  THAT SKIRT.  THAT JACKET.



The Underground Youth // Alice // What Kind of Dystopian Hellhole is This? // TBR February 2017

I never want to see your pretty little face again.
 
Word of advice, in the event you happen to be even more naive than I.  Never go back, darling.  Even if they beg, plead, cajole and soothe you with word balms.  It's always a farce because those true colors never lie, dearest.

In other news, taking a moment to acknowledge the sadness of the Oakland fire on December 2nd where, Cash Askew, member of Them Are Us Too, lost her life along with many other talented souls.



Them Are Us Too // Us Now // Remain // 2015

Beautiful and haunting.  What an absolute shame.

A Rainbow Out of Your Hole

How can I speak about what has transpired?  I've been in absolute shock, turmoil and disbelief.  My country is falling apart.  The icons I've so admired are dead.  My last post was one of beatific admiration about my beloved Leonard Cohen; how could I know it was a dirge and he would join the procession of the many beautiful souls lost this year?

On a selfish note, there's been too much.  Shaking my head as I write this.  How can anything be made right anymore?

The world's gone beyond mad and at this desperate point, well....listen to this and yeah, you've guessed it.  I've been listening to this song for 3 days straight.



The Charlatans (UK) // Between 10th and 11th // Can't Even Be Bothered // 1992

Darker, Always

Perversely in love with Leonard Cohen's latest.



Leonard Cohen // You Want it Darker // 2016

Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name
Vilified, crucified, in the human frame
A million candles burning for the help that never came
You want it darker
 
Hineni, hineni
I'm ready, my lord

There's a lover in the story
But the story's still the same
There's a lullaby for suffering
And a paradox to blame
But it's written in the scriptures
And it's not some idle claim
You want it darker
We kill the flame

They're lining up the prisoners
And the guards are taking aim
I struggled with some demons
They were middle class and tame
I didn't know I had permission to murder and to maim
You want it darker

 Really looking forward to seeing this stylized, trippy 60s inspired homage to witches.

The Love Witch - 2016

In a recent interview, Biller states:

“There are two versions of the witch,” Biller explained. “The old, ugly hag and the young, beautiful temptress. They’ve both been around since early Greek mythology, when Circe enchanted men and turned them into pigs. They all stem from male fears and fantasies about women. Men want the woman but they’re also afraid of her. That’s the reality for women. They’re made to feel like they’re weird and creepy and insane, especially if they are sexual...

Biller understands Elaine as a stand-in for all women who give up pieces of themselves to satiate the desires of men. “For women, you will be more powerful if you play by the rules, the way Elaine does,” she explained. “But there is a terrible price to pay. I’ve known girls and women who have gone insane trying to be too much of a man’s fantasy. Elaine is strong until she isn’t. She goes past being a goddess and into place of mental illness.”

Give A Damn

I sometimes get snobby when it comes to new music but I can't help but tap the old foot with the following:


Kristin Kontrol (Dum Dum Girls) - X Communicate
Thoughts on love currently.


Nice as Fuck - Door  (official video only, cuz it's funny)
Thoughts on the political world currently.


War on Drugs - Under the Pressure
Thoughts on existence currently.

Not new - just amazing and a total current MOOD.

Dominatrix - The Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight
Thoughts on art and revenge currently.