Record impressions, rambles and ruminations
In the past year, I’ve caught an increasing amount of concerts—20, in fact. A decent count, but it neither gives me any right brag, nor any excuse not to have earplugs. The sum isn’t off the wall amazing, but it is a roughly 2000% increase of my concerts-per-annum rate naught but four years ago. In […]
This time there was no faffing about—I wrote my fiveish questions down in my catch-all journal during the lead-up to DIIV and Ariel Pink—wholly intent on clamming out some answers from DIIV and ignoring the fact that Ariel Pink was even going to be there.
You gotta convince the fools in the pit that…you fell asleep with that thing, your thing, an instrument, your instrument across your chest or under your head, passed out after exploring it with the curiosity of a serial cave diver.
UMO is kinda like a lo-fi prince. And I’m talking the gigolo of funk, the true king of the Eighties prince: capital-P Prince.
The third album is a pain in the ass, an asshole, a bastard. It broke the Mint Chicks and sent Ruben Nielson scurrying to Portland, Oregon to cache himself in graphic design and commercial art. However, the foxhole he ended up in was a basement studio filled with all the gadgets and toys a growing musician needs.
We may have been too carried away last record not to notice that the now-known Mortal behind the Orchestra didn’t particularly enjoy being high as a kite on a mountainside all the time. Perhaps we forgot why it’s called a daytrip and why we take them. Abnormal days require special cool-down times.
In a sober-state, the Unknown Mortal voice behind the Orchestra would confuse me. He’s flexing Harrison-esque vocal muscles cloaked in studio effects, as if trying hide what is so painfully obvious: the mind-flaying musical alphabet starts with a B-Eatles and the drugs make you see shit, hear shit, believe shit.
