Hello again,
Welcome to issue #4 of Crow’s Nest. I know I said I would try for every 2 weeks and it’s been 3, whatever, I didn’t feel compelled to spend the time I had off work during the New Year’s break on this. There wasn’t too much going on content-wise then and a week later … well now. As an FYI this intro section is long so if you want to start checking out the tunes within scroll down then come back.
I find it impossible to ignore the events of 1/6 and their ongoing fallout, so even though I feel awkward writing about them when others have said the same but better and more elegantly elsewhere, I’d feel worse to send this into the void with my head in the proverbial sand. While the initial spectacle of pro-Trump supporters breaching the Capitol building had some humor to it—Viking Guy, walking calmly between the velvet ropes like they’re on tour and not a smash-and-grab raid to overturn the will of the people, all my tweets about that guy who died after Tasing himself in the balls while trying to steal a Tip O’Neill painting—it is obvious that this represents a monumental failure of the Capitol Police and other security/intelligence agencies to protect the legislature, the legislators and democracy. At best they did not recognize the threat as such; at worst they actively aided and abetted it by failing to prepare and push back sufficiently, and even assisted the militant mob in its marauding.
As of this writing it is clear the mob was out for blood and minutes if not seconds away from brutalizing and, likely, lynching many Representatives, Senators and even the Vice President for not bowing to the President’s demands. At minimum the perpetrators, meaning both the mob and the agitators among the right-wing populace need to experience severe consequences for their actions. This includes but is not limited to President Trump and the legislators seriously or theatrically objecting to the certification of President-elect Biden’s victory, notably Senators Cruz and Hawley and Representative Brooks. Impeachment and expulsion under existing laws and regulations should be the starting point.
Speaking of consequences, some that have emerged outside of the government merit further discussion. President Trump has been permanently banned from Twitter, his favored digital bullhorn, and Senator Hawley had a forthcoming book with one of the big book publishers pulled in the face of both public outrage at his behavior regarding the certification, and privately among employees at the publisher. Hawley and other diffusive rightwing loudmouths have taken their talking points about so-called “cancel culture”, “censorship”, “being silenced” etc. off the back burner alongside a slew of illiterate references to 1984. (As if, for starters, the Oceanian government wouldn’t preclude a book like whatever Hawley wrote from being written to begin with.)
While such lofty terms are thrown about, what has truly happened is that private actors have determined that Trump, Hawley, Parler etc. have either violated the terms of use for their service, and/or that the liabilities that come from hosting or working with them exceed the benefits. This is not “censorship”; these are things called “experiencing consequences for your actions” and “terminating a business relationship”. No one gets censored in America. No American is required to submit their writing to a censorship board or similar where a faceless bureaucrat inks out what they and their government don’t agree with prior to publication. (Your editor requesting changes is not the same thing. Someone paying attention to what you’re doing and giving you feedback to improve it is generally a good thing. I wish I could be edited and have such a relationship.) This is private actors determining that public figures should not have carte blanche to do whatever they want with their tools and resources. The free market championed by conservatives following the passing of civil rights legislation was no doubt significantly about perpetuating anti-Black racism in the U.S., and it does feel good to see said system turn somewhat on its proponents.
That doesn’t make the arrangement good or ideal; it’s just the system we have at hand. I personally don’t think it’s the best possible system, but it’s better (if not good) that some powerful private actors are now standing up to their clients and taking away their keys. I am also of the opinion that if you are concerned about the silencing of individual actors nowadays, you’re missing the disintegrating forest through the trees. The monopoly power of tech platforms, publishers, other gatekeepers and those desiring a profit from writing/activity actively suppress important and interesting stories and perspectives—indeed, whole marginal groups most leftists could rattle off reflexively—and keep attention focused on what they want: mainly, their attention itself regardless of what content it’s focused on, or how extreme said content is. Hawley is whining that his book isn’t going to be in stores, meanwhile if I pitched a book to the same publisher I’m not sure it would get skimmed by more than 1-2 people before getting unceremoniously thrown in the trash pile. The stories not getting written, the voices remaining unheard, everything not occurring, to say nothing about the economic issues at hand of who can write and get published is way more important than a Senator’s options being limited as a result of being an asshole.
More relevant to the music community and along similar lines as above is Ariel Pink and John Maus’s attendance at the rally which preceded the mob attack on the Capitol. Ariel, in my view, has long been known as an “edgy” dick and I largely tuned him out after he picked a fight with Grimes, showing his ass along with the weakness of his songwriting. Getting dropped from his label is nothing unexpected or out of line of past instances where artists espoused bigotry. Maus is a bit more difficult case if only because I liked him more and he was considered a deep thinker about politics and the modern condition compared to Pink. It didn’t really translate to the set of his I saw about a year and a half ago, and it’s a shame he’s gotten sucked in by the contrarian radicalization engulfing the U.S. I remain of the opinion that there is too much music out there to make paying attention to ‘complicated’ edge cases a worthwhile endeavor, especially for casual listeners. Other artists making similar music out of the same synths deserve your attention more.
I’d be remiss to avoid noting that, of Maus’s songs, ‘Hey Moon’ is the best and the biggest loss of his and Pink’s cancellation. As I learned recently the song was actually written by Molly Nilsson, who has since reissued it with proceeds going to Black Lives Matter organizations. Of course the things that don’t get told are better than what you first see. I’m holding off on purchasing until the next Bandcamp Day but obviously this deserves your support more than him.
Ok, I know every time I write I think it goes on for too long, but now it’s time for the tunes and other things I’ve read. No tweets this issue as I don’t feel compelled to dig through my likes for the really good ones this time.
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Speaking of more ‘complicated’ white men commanding a disproportionate amount of attention for their bullshit, The KLF have returned (again), putting out a compilation of some of their bigger songs on streaming services and releasing a film Welcome to the Dark Ages about their effort to build a massive pyramid out of human cremains beginning in 2017. I wonder if and how they’ll burn their million…ths of cents of streaming royalties this time, and more seriously if they’ll put out some new tunes and that. They put out that book “2023: A Trilogy” a few years ago after all.
One of the books I’ve read recently is not my first on the subject: Radiohead’s Kid A. This Isn’t Happening: Radiohead’s “Kid A” and the Beginning of the 21st Century by Steven Hyden takes a look at the history of the group, centering and contextualizing the landmark album and the wider culture in which it came out and, you know, how things have gone since then. I have a bit of trouble summarizing books briefly and even whether I consider them good or not, based on the time investment said reading requires. This one felt a little light but is still full of anecdotes, “did you know”s and other episodes I didn’t really know about the group. If you have a significant interest in the group, the album or the turn of the millennium like I do (Kid A is my instinctual favorite album of all time, and my recommendations and tastes probably reflect that), I’d say it’s worth a read. Definitely my favorite book on the album by a white Minnesotan that I’ve read (yes, there’s more than one). Check out the excerpt on Pitchfork if you’re on the fence.
Berlin artistic collective Rec Room have released a debut compilation of dance music. As always I need to spend more time listening through it but the first playthrough was good.
Chicago label Hausu Mountain have put out their first new release of the year, a live recording of the label heads’ electro-prog band Good Willsmith at Chicago venue Sleeping Village. Throughout this quarantine period I’ve near-completely abstained from watching livestreams and that, from a combo of lack of interest and the sense that such attempts would only be inadequate simulacra of the live thing denied, though I did watch the label’s recent ‘pizza night’ stream which was pretty great all around, especially Damiana’s set. You can see those performances on the label’s Twitch and YouTube pages. Anyway I really miss spots like Sleeping Village.
I read Yoko Ogawa’s The Memory Police recently and really enjoyed it. It’s a dystopian tale in the vein of, yes, 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, about a writer on a mysterious island where the titular force commands the disappearance of things like flowers and maps from the island and the people’s minds. Dissenters are punished harshly. There are obvious metaphorical parallels to the Holocaust, climate change, capitalist realism and more here, and it’s a novel I definitely need to revisit soon. Highly recommended, if you can manage the style there’s an excerpt and more at Welcome to Hell World from a few months ago.
While things were quiet in that liminal time period between Christmas and New Years that contains my birthday, I came across Electrelane in Spotify’s recommended tab while queueing up Broadcast records to play while an edible kicked in. I’m always down for Krautrock-heavy indie in the vein of Broadcast and Stereolab, and their entire discography feels like a hidden gem. I particularly like this 1-2 punch on The Power Out, it’s nice when bands play around with fills and other small-scale touches like the vocals like here.
Another benefit compilation this time for relief efforts in the eastern Mediterranean via the electronic music scene and diaspora in Melbourne. Again, more time on it and that though a few contributors like DJ Plead and Gabber Eleganza are notable.
I literally pulled the latest issue of The Baffler out of its plastic as I wrote this all up. I’ve not gotten through it and may not for a bit as I attempt to commit to another book for a book club, but recent highlights:
-Vincent Bevins on how the Internet remains a tool of American hegemony
-Ben Ehrenreich on how the events of the past year show how California is and remains the future, for worse
-I’m not too familiar with the overall subject which makes Bongani Kona’s recollections and personal history surrounding the atrocities during Zimbabwe’s Second Chimurenga all the more intriguing
You can usually get me with ‘electronic music from Portugal’ but there are good reasons for that, as exhibited by this release from Black Hole Time Warp.
Bell Orchestre, the Montreal contemporary classical group including Sarah Neufeld and Richard Reed Parry of Arcade Fire, have announced their latest album House Music (no not like that). A friend dropped off a vintage Ikea lounge chair at my place yesterday and I was quite comfortable listening to the first part of this in that.
Among the myriad of items that experienced some level of shortage this year, the toilet paper one was probably the biggest. The weirder, wilder one has to be bucatini pasta as this article goes in depth on. I’ve never had the shape before, and while I’m dialing back on “fun” ones, I want some now.
“Who is Chaircrusher and what does he want? Apparently he’s a dude named Kent Williams and he runs a ‘banging techno’ label called Cornwarning straight outta the fields of Iowa.” I’m quoting from the Bandcamp page/press release, yes, but that’s the best descriptor of this. If you can get over the mental geographic hurdle in your head I reckon this holds its own against established outposts like Berlin and London. Evidently there’s more to Iowa than cheap rent, corn, soybeans and the first Presidential primaries, namely Chaircrusher.
Kode9 is back with his first EP since 2013—way back when I first discovered Hyperdub and electronic music in depth—and the B-side, A-side out next week, keeps it up. Listening to it and particularly those panning cymbals, it definitely sounds like how it is these days.
The latest New Yorkers have not been the best for me. I’m not the best at ‘getting’ visual art so the Xmas issue centering that didn’t do much for me. There’s also The Plague Year, Lawrence Wright’s epic accounting of this past year of the pandemic in America and how, well, we’ve gotten to this point. I’m a bit skeptical of self-proclaimed instant classics like this is but it’s definitely worth spending time with if you haven’t already.
I discovered this one via Bandcloud’s latest issue and his first one published here on Substack (hi Aidan). Brighton producer Hardworking Families, here as DLC Soundsystem, has taken the riff’s namesake Sound of Silver and put it through the wringer. Parts of this sounds like the album being beaten up on the collapsing streets of NYC during post-punk’s initial heyday that James Murphy so strongly appreciates. Particular highlights for me include the wobbling loops of ‘Great Sums’, and the ambient dub techno churn of ‘Over and Over Again’. One of these is a vaporwave edit.
If you haven’t realized it yet I’m a fan of krautrock, and going through some unread older Bandcamp emails I found this, released in the mid-2000s by Norwegian label Smalltown Supersound and posted to Bandcamp as they evidently get their archives up there. I could really go for something highlighting this era of Scandinavian music.
A final book I’ve read recently is Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia by Christina Thompson. It’s an (intellectual) history/anthropological book on European-Polynesian interactions, going through how the former group has attempted to figure out how the latter managed to settle across the Pacific, from first contact through Polynesian systems of knowledge up to present day science and Indigenous cultural revival. I would have preferred some additional history of the islands not relating to the subject matter, but it is accessible to non-specialists and worth a read if you have an interest in it.
A side effect of me inserting tweets into previous issues is that every issue has featured a memeified David Byrne appearance so far. No tweets this issue, but in a very ‘I know’ manner I have actually been listening to a fair amount of Talking Heads these last few weeks. Mostly ’77 and Speaking in Tongues, shut up. (I also got my uncle Chris Frantz’s recent memoir for Christmas.) So for the final tune here’s one I’ve never really heard others talk about that honestly may be one of the best ever album closers too.
And we’re done. It’d be pompous of me to assume you could get through all that in one sitting, if you’ve reached this point, thank you so much for reading, as always. I’m @embirdened on twitter though feel free to use the other tools here as well if you feel like reaching out.
I’ve made it a point of including an animal picture from my phone but that doesn’t seem appropriate at this time. Take a few moments for yourself to observe local flora and fauna instead, alright?
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