I started the week with a drive to the Imperial Triumphant/Cloak/Couch Slut show in Mobile. Couch Slut was a noisy, sludgy rock that I liked, though I couldn’t hear the vocals. Imperial Triumphant were great to see up close at a smaller venue. Kenny Grohowski, their drummer, is worth hearing in any project, whether it’s high-level jazz or black metal or whatever fusion of genres he’s playing. A good friend hooked me up with tickets. Thanks, man!
I just finished watching this, so I’ve had little time to process. Part of me is thrilled that an experimental horror movie was presented at local mainstream theaters. The movie envelopes the viewer in a nightmarish atmosphere and features some great sound design (with a few nods to Eraserhead, The Shining, and Poltergeist). Skinamarink features a few fascinating and haunting images. It captures the feeling of being a child and waking up in the middle of the night and feeling scared or lost.
However, I often found it boring. I say that while acknowledging how much I love Chantel Ackerman’s boring films like Hotel Monterey. That could be the viewing context, I don’t know. This next part might be spoilery–Ultimately, while the experience is interesting, I couldn’t read the film as being about anything other than the neglect and murder of children. I’m a monster kid, and I know the worst monsters are human, but that’s not the horror I’m attracted to, which also may be another contradiction that I’m willing to live with.
Local group Ghost Food is releasing a track each month this year with a guest artist. “Wolf Moon” is the first one and is another great trip into the noise/electronics/improv/film score sounds of the group.
Greenlief’s releases are always worth a listen. This one‘s fantastic. Solo horn compositions, heavy on the improvisational elements. “Deconstruction Meditations” is a cut-up of themes from Berio, Stravinsky, and Thelonious Monk. Greenlief’s performances have so many nuances and I go back to them all the time.
A new playlist is available. I had it ready to go and then we lost Burt Bacharach, so I added one of my favorites by him, “Trains and Boats and Plains.” I saw him with a friend in concert about twenty years ago, and some some smiling elderly ladies bought us popcorn. The music was sublime and immaculately performed. And just like Tony Williams who follows him in the playlist, they are both singers I like, but who got a lot of criticism for their voices. Of course, Bacharach also worked with exceptional singers to bring his glorious melodies to life.
I just noticed an AI button to generate text. It warns it’s in the experimental stage. Everything below is AI, including the unfinished sentence.
Marginalia, roughly defined, are notes written in the margins of a text, typically with the intent to make observations or provide commentary on the main text. It’s a practice that dates back to the ancient Greeks, but it was made popular again in the 19th century.
Bacharach, according to the interview, loved to
Stephen McClurg 