Good morning,
Welcome to the second issue of Crow’s Nest. Thank you for your support and interest in this newsletter. I would have gotten this out (slightly) sooner but my new, first pair of big boy bookshelf speakers arrived yesterday, and I had a virtual hangout with some friends that also delayed my writing. Oh well.
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IF ONLY YOU KNEW HOW MUCH I LET MYSELF DOWN
MYSELF DOWN
As you probably know, last Friday the 4th was the last Bandcamp Friday of 2020 (perhaps all time?), the day the digital music retailer waives its fees to help artists affected by the pandemic. I could and probably should go longer on this, especially in light of the Spotify Wrapped drop that occurred earlier in the week. Briefly: Bandcamp Day is good but not sufficient; Spotify’s compensation model, which maxes out at around $0.06/hr of streamed music going to the artist/label/management/rights holders, is completely busted; and the government ought to be doing more to address the pandemic, namely by paying people (not just artists) to stay home while doing nothing to let case counts decline. It’s not my fav in the series but read Liz Pelly on Wrapped as well.
Mush have announced their next album Lines Redacted, out in February. I enjoyed 3D Routine when it came out early this year so I am excited this is nearly here. Sadly guitarist Steven Tyson has passed away, according to a statement by the band. RIP.
Warp Records has joined Bandcamp, in time for the last Bandcamp Day. Truly, there’s something for everyone in their catalog. Honestly I find it wild to scroll down and see the juxtapositions in their release schedule you wouldn’t think of nowadays, like Broadcast followed by AFX followed by Boards of Canada.
Two things I picked up from the back catalog:
-A single from Lonelady’s 2015 album, which I feel is quite underappreciated
-This 2002 collaboration between Russell Haswell and Merzbow
I have read a book in the past 2 weeks but don’t feel like highlighting it. Instead, some Baffler articles I’ve finally gotten to:
-Rafia Zakaria’s 2020 election postmortem, keeping eyes on the prize concerning the most troubling demographic tendency in the election (hint: it’s white people)
-Hettie O’Brien on stoicism’s recent resurgence, and how its latest proponents mistakenly depoliticize the philosophy
-John Kazior on the literal bubbles being sold as air pollution encroaches back on the developed world
-Yásnaya Elena Aguilar Gil on borders from the perspective of indigenous Mexican groups
Not that I ever need or give a reason to listen to Tropical Fuck Storm, but recent talk about the chess show on Netflix is a convenient excuse to share one of the best songs ever written about the game
I’m not 100% sure why, exactly, Bandcamp Daily published the story behind how Normal Hawaiian’s Return of the Ranters finally got released a few years ago last week, since I thought that interest peaked when it came out in 2014/2015, but I’ll take it as a reason to revisit the albums. My fav of the (naturally) British group has to be their debut, More Wealth Than Money, the demos included alone being as good as, if not better than the proper album.
Seasonal reminder that ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ is partially responsible for the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the world
2 very solid tracks from Facta:
The last 2 weeks of The New Yorker haven’t been that great, especially last week’s bad cover and David Sedaris going full Karen in an attempt to be humorous (?) about wanting customers to be able to fire customer service employees. That being said a few articles have been good:
-How venture capital enabled the insanity that is/was WeWork
-Economics students debate the value of a human life (for the love of God I hope it does turn out to be more than $24,000)
-A Brooklyn school trying to sue the federal government into doing its job
Back in January I (finally) saw Hieroglyphic Being perform live at the Empty Bottle. Even if live music was not, uh, thoroughly derailed by -gestures broadly- his improvised dance set would be a highlight from this year. As it stands I’d consider it my favorite concert of the year. Jamal Moss has been keeping busy through quarantine by digging through his vault and putting out releases at a frankly insane speed as of late; this live recording from last year “DEEP IN EAST GERMANY OCT 17 2019
@ A ANARCHIST SQUATTERS COMPOUND” is a taste of what we’re missing.
Tim Gane of Stereolab and Cavern of Anti-matter has a new group, Ghost Power, with Jeremy Novak of Dymaxion. The group’s debut 7” seems promising
Avalon Emerson has a new EP on AD 93 (fka Whities) out next week; Rotting Hills sounds more pleasant than the name suggests
Shackleton has released another Tunes of Negation album. More longform heavy drone and tribal atmospherics to enjoy
I was listening to Faust IV again recently after being reminded of it by a friend. The Sad Skinhead and it’s Strokes-meets-that-Gotye-song beat got stuck in my head so enjoy
Some more electronic music that I like but find hard to detail
This is another electronic release that I need to spend more time with. Reminds me of one of my favorite Smurphy tracks at times though that comparison doesn’t hold up entirely, I’m sure
What could have been
Alright, that’s long enough for this. If you’ve read this far, thank you, I hope you enjoyed it. I’m going to aim for a biweekly or 2x a month schedule with these. Email or tweet me with any feedback if you feel like it.
Here’s another bird from a walk I’ve taken recentlyish:
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