Aural Velvet

Hello, tumbling tumblrs, I'm Tamara, and this space is wherein I write about my favorite songs, musicians, & albums.

[andyideas]

Andy Hull (@andyideas)

3/13/26 ktb

[auralvelvet]

words become worlds

i had the incredible privilege of attending my first writing retreat this weekend, which you wouldn't think relates to music, but it very much does, as Amanda Opelt was our breathing & singing leader, along with the discovery that many of the writers there are also wonderful singers and musicians. it also relates to music because that's primarily the topic i love to write about and react to - it was a lovely inspiring time in the mountain air of western NC, and cemented and clarified for me the scope and purpose of how i want to interact with the world through my writing.

[short version: it's near the Emily Dickinson, intensely personal end of the spectrum]. more tk.

speaking of, this part is mostly for the writers i met, compiling some of my favorite words i've written. and can't wait to also be immersed in all of your writing. yes. thank you.

Audiofemme - personal reflections on music in their "Only Noise" column:

Finding A New Gospel In Unlikely Hymns

My New Year's Resolution to Listen to More Women Empowered Me

Interview with musician Lesley Barth

from herein tumblr:

Essay for local Tom Petty tribute concert

Interview with poet Marla Taviano

Album reviews:

Kevin Devine - Instigator, Bad Books III, Nothing's Real So Nothing's Wrong, newest 7" singles

Laura Stevenson - The Big Freeze

sunvale - tearwater tea EP

[auralvelvet]

i guess it's comfortable under the weather :: tearwater tea EP by sunvale

full disclosure: this album is by my best friend's daughter so i am extremely biased and the proudest i have ever been and also i have excellent music taste unrelated to having known the artist when she was a wee babe with tiny pigtails //

buy her album here or autotuned ghosts will haunt you

that's from "This Is Spinal Tap", get famils, youths!

she said this during a ridiculously fun livestream on album release night

inclusively CC as are her official genius lyrics

recommended if you like: the beths, juliana hatfield, liz phair, crying into your coffee (or tea)

[auralvelvet]

Reality Adherence // reflections on the new 7" from Kevin Devine

Kevin has been one of my unlicensed spiritual directors for almost half of my life - inspiring me for two decades with his wisdom, thoughtfulness, and willingness to change his mind, to proclaim, "I don't know" and "I'm trying"; insight spelled out through extensively vulnerable interview answers, and even more frankly through his lyrics.

A key tenet of his I've adopted is embracing Reality as a higher power. I've leaned on this foundation, which helped abate anxiety, overcome isolationist, despairing tendencies, and motivate me to live up to my stated values. [I also fail, often. I'm trying.] Discerning what is Real, what is Actually Happening Right Now, and what is True, is a Sisyphean task, starkly contrasted against increasingly active worst-case-scenario spiraling thoughts and feelings.

"God Is In The Numbers" is, as Kevin explains, "a Gaza song, a solidarity song; it feels like a meditation, which I believe is its own form of protest." This song helps us through the concrete math metaphor, actual numbers calming our scattered thoughts and leading us to focused action, even if that action's just counting down moments until a harrowing situation ends - like waiting on test results from a doctor's office. "Starvation's still a war crime no matter where you come from" expansively reminds us to care about and be aware of horrors happening outside of our own brains and beyond our own communities.

The inherent empathy found in "I feel this pull to say there's only one tribe" reminds me of a favorite line from a novel: "No woman can be an exile if she remembers that all the world is one city."* At the "cellular soul" level, we can support fellow tribe members in need - investing in mutual aid networks, donating and serving food, advocating for revolutionary housing policies - balancing the solidarity seesaw by "throwing your weight on the side of the disenfranchised". We owe each other a reality-adherent, terrible loyalty. "God Is In The Numbers" is something to say, and I'm grateful Kevin said it.

*

I happened to be reading sci-fi from the year 2125 while listening to "Laughing In The Ambulance Again", it's the perfect soundtrack for astronauts with bionic arms, rocking out to this amped diatribe as they mine gold from asteroid belts.

I love the Pixies-esque distorted vocals, how mild self-pity morphs into ultra-defiance, the synthy guitar line that almost mocks "the human heart can be so cruel, so cruel", and the caustic emotion of the severe, viscerally arresting line, "Drank the gaslight thinking it was fuel". Kevin's inimitably brilliant, direct, and succinct here, then, the wall of drums dreamily explodes into the chorus, where we're dragged along a trajectory from passivity to action, from desperation to relief, through "clutching / spitting / melting / choking / laughing [in the ambulance again]".

A stunning, unhinged bridge catapults us forward through the adroit wizardry of guitarist Mike Strandberg and drummer Damon Cox. This power trio offers us a proper punk rock song, filled with desolate imagery like "I'm a glacier / melting into someone I could like", spurring us on to the outer galaxies, "blinking at the end of time", until the roaring meteoric chords direct us in a recursive return to earth.

*fun fact: when you copy down quotes you can change the default gender; you can also forget the source material

[auralvelvet]

An Argument for Hope: album review of Meager Fare EP

hello, friendly readers. I was listening to my friend's band tonight & remembered I wrote a brief album review for it in 2013 when it was released. it's now only on bandcamp & free for your listening attention. I wanted to copy it here for posterity. you should also check out his other music here.

As we navigate through our daily existence, it can be easy to get complacent, until the changing of seasons startles us awake, reminds us of all our unfulfilled dreams, that we're one year older, but not necessarily any wiser, and we struggle to accept this routine of our grown-up lives. We get caught up in schedules and responsibilities and trudge along in our default settings. Meager Fare's music challenges us to seek out the beauty amidst the mundane, to find redemption waiting for us in each new morning, to search for patches of hope even when we feel surrounded by darkness. The music pleads with us to make peace with the black-sheep sides of our selves, yet not expect so much constant greatness from our perfectionist sides. It stresses that the only way to save the day is to work together in harmony, and keep our heads up, scanning the horizon for new joys to be found. It's a convincing, inspiring, courageous argument that points us toward a renewal of the mind.

[auralvelvet]

Liberating Libraries:

an interview with poet Marla Taviano

Marla Taviano is the author of several poetry books, including unbelieve, jaded, and the forthcoming whole, which leads readers to ‘reclaim the pieces of ourselves and create something new’, by talking about ‘looking back to move forward, new thoughts on god, our inner lives, embodied living, and books, books, books’. Whether you’re constantly in the process of redefining and being curious about what it looks like to have faith (raises hand) or whether you’ve left all the labels behind and are pursuing a life outside of religious faith, Marla has written a ‘collection of love letter poems to herself, and to all of her readers’. I had the privilege of interviewing Marla ahead of her upcoming book release day on March 26. You can preorder the book here. Marla will host a virtual book release party on March 26*, with a poetry reading and book signing event at Queer Haven Books in Columbia, SC, on March 27, and she'll be at an arts market in Rock Hill, SC, on May 11.

I saw that you recently inventoried the amount of books you own in your house, and it is around 4,000 books! How have you cultivated your home library, how is this possible? What does your collection look like? Do you have multiple copies of certain books, do you typically re-read books once they're in your library, and is there anything else you want to share about this amazing collection?

I love this question, it could be a whole entire interview! Yes, I just inventoried all my books. My 14-year-old niece was thrilled to count them for me. I have 4003, to be exact!

I’ve amassed approximately 3803 of these books in the four years since I moved back to the States from Cambodia in March 2020. The majority of the books come from the incredible thrift stores we have here in Columbia, SC. Paperbacks are $1 and hardcovers are $2. Kids’ books are 50 cents. Sometimes my library has books 5 for $1.

My collection looks like a whole lot of books by BIPOC authors, which I read and review here; a whole lot of toxic Christian books, mainly by James Dobson, and whitewashed history books I collect for research; a whole lot of free books from publishers, a whole lot of kids’ books I cut up for poem art, and a whole lot of vintage books. 

I also collect books for three friends who all dream of opening bookstores—and one of those is opening soon, Queer Haven Books, which will be the first queer bookstore here in Columbia! My favorite hobby is going to thrift stores with my oldest daughter and looking for great books. I then curate and pass along some of those books free of charge to friends who dream of opening bookstores one day soon. I donate my time and book expertise, and allow the book sellers to profit from the eventual sales by asking others to 'sponsor' a box of curated books (and recoup what I spent at the thrift stores). The two friends who are still in the process of achieving their bookstore dreams are Tayler Simon, who owns an organization called Liberation Is Lit, and Lettie Gore, whose current project is But Then You Read.

I don’t typically have multiple copies of books except for my sizeable collection of editions of The Color Purple, and owning at least twenty books by some of my favorite authors: Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and James Baldwin.

I’m re-reading all of Toni Morrison’s novels right now. I’ve also re-read Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston) and The Color Purple. I just re-read You Could Make This Place Beautiful (Maggie Smith) and will be re-re-reading it. I also love re-reading books about writing: Bird by Bird (Anne Lamott), Novelist As a Vocation (Haruki Murakami), Poet Warrior (Joy Harjo), and remembered rapture (bell hooks).

I don’t keep track of my books, but that’s on my agenda for this year, along with curating my collection and getting it down to around 3000 books. The past few years were all about me figuring out what I want. What I want to read, study, research, keep—and make into poem art and protest art. I started the curation this week, and I’m having the time of my life!

Who are some of your favorite poets to read, and what themes or styles draw you to their poetry?

I love Alice Walker’s straightforward and simple poems. I love Morgan Harper Nichols’s encouraging words paired with her beautiful artwork. Clint Smith, Marcus Amaker, Drew Jackson, and KB Brookins are all great. I love Lucille Clifton, Nikki Giovanni, Jessica Kantrowitz, Maggie Smith, and Fred Joseph. I prefer poems that are less abstract. Some poetry hurts my head. And my feelings.

One of my favorite poets is Christian Wiman. He recently said in an interview that "Poetry is meant to be spoken - half of the misconceptions about poetry could be dispensed with if people just read it aloud." Will there be an audiobook version of whole, or do you have plans to do any recordings of selections from it?

There will be an audiobook version of whole! There’s already an audiobook version of jaded, and we’ll probably make one for unbelieve soon. I don’t read the books myself, but the narrators do a really good job. I’ve been meaning to read more of my own poetry out loud on video, so hopefully I'll do that soon!

It seems like a significant part of your audience may have gone through a religious faith crisis or shift in belief systems, and as a result have probably lost community. Do you have advice in how to navigate the relationships with those who have remained in these systems, when it comes to sharing current beliefs with them while being respectful of their current beliefs as well? I think there's a worry about offending people we love or not wanting to risk being as vulnerable with them as you are being on a public level.

I might not be the best person to ask! I’ve offended all kinds of people, including one of my sisters, and I honestly don’t have many people left in my life who might be offended by what I say. I only see my parents a few times a year and we just keep the peace by avoiding deeper topics. My other sister lives here in Columbia, and we have some differing views, so I’m respectful of her and avoid some difficult topics as well.

I had a pastor friend endorse whole, even though we have different views on god and church. Another friend mentioned in her endorsement that we don’t agree on everything. Another friend told me she couldn’t endorse it because her husband is a pastor, though she said she knows where I'm coming from. So it’s something I do my best to navigate, and I do it imperfectly. 

I would just ask people in my audience why you’re afraid to share something. Sometimes offending people is unnecessary, and sometimes it’s very necessary, especially when it involves standing up for people who are being marginalized and harmed. I don’t mind being offensive, but it needs to be for a good reason. 

Yes, that nuanced advice resonates with me, and reminds me of a James Baldwin quote, “We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist." What are some other ways you hope that whole will impact readers?

I want people to feel loved, I want them to feel hopeful, I want them to feel brave, and I want them to feel whole.

More specifically, I hope people are inspired to write poetry. I hope they’re inspired to pursue that weird thing they love. I hope people start celebrating themselves and others for who they really are. I hope people read my poems, and then go make art or music. I hope the book inspires people to do something they really want to do but they’ve been too afraid to until now. I love it when my words infuse people with courage. I want my poems to make people laugh and help them find freedom.

Those are lovely book intentions! Do you have any fun plans to celebrate on the release date?

My publisher is throwing a virtual launch party* for me on the day whole releases (March 26). I originally wanted it to be a party just for my launch team, but we decided to open it to anyone who wants to celebrate with me. 

Then, on March 27th, I’m having a book signing at Queer Haven Books. Their grand opening isn’t until April 7th, but they’re doing a handful of preview events, and my book signing is one of them. I’m super excited!

What's next for you? Are there any current or future projects in the works?

Always! In April, my friend Tayler and I are hosting a month-long poetry workshop called Poet to Published, where we’re going to help people self-publish a book of poetry in thirty days. We’d love for anyone reading this to join us! And I’ll be self-publishing at least one small book of poetry myself! 

Then I have some older e-books that I’m reworking and re-releasing as paperbacks. And I’d love to write a couple of books about writing. And I’ve got a divorce memoir in the works. And so much more poetry to write! I have ideas for more books than I can probably write. But I’m going to do my best to get them all out into the world. That’s why I’m curating everything in my home right now—to create time and space for writing those books. //

I'm so grateful that Marla spent so much time thoughtfully answering my questions, and this was such a great, inspiring conversation. Here's another reminder to preorder whole so you can have it on release day next week!

_____________________________________________________________ *Event link available upon request

[auralvelvet]

god's grace, gutter lullaby :: album review of Nothing's Real, So Nothing's Wrong by Kevin Devine

A few years ago, I was at a Kevin Devine concert, effusively joining in with "Another Bag of Bones", and afterward, my friend turned to me and asked, "Are you having fun?", and I said, "As much fun as you can have singing about the apocalypse!"

I think his newest album encapsulates this nuanced feeling even more directly - while that song sort of drones along in minor-chord-screams, Nothing's Real, So Nothing's Wrong is full of straight-up dancing jingles that then shock you with their content, like "It's a trap! And I set it! Now we're in it and we're all gonna die!"

I truly believe I wouldn't have survived the last two years with any sense of sanity or purpose if I didn't know Kevin and didn't have his music already firmly entrenched in my (broken) brain. Above and beyond these past offerings, Kevin almost immediately started a Patreon, where he's been the most dependable and vulnerable content provider ever since. With monthly livestreams and Q & A videos, Kevin fully expressed just how much he was in the trenches with all of us, and just how difficult it was (and is) to be a human in a sea of uncompassionate other humans who are a visceral threat to your daily health and life.

Us fortunate patrons were also privileged to hear all of these new songs (and the gorgeous EP songs) very early in the process. Each month we received a new demo, with extra new songs often showing up as well, which meant my very first encounter with "Albatross" was in an April 2020 livestream. Even in this raw format, I already knew it would end up being an anchor song, both for me and for Kevin's entire catalog. I've been proven right, especially this year in finally hearing the album version and witnessing the power of its anthemic chorus live with a full band. It's on par with "Ballgame", "Brother's Blood", and "I Was Alive Back Then", a career-defining cornerstone moment that gets more cemented into greatness with each listen. "Nothing ventured. Nothing gained. Nothing matters anyway. If you're frightened, stay awake. Pick a god and start to pray" and "If you're sinking, sing along. Nothing's real, so nothing's wrong" at first listen sound pretty nihilistic, but upon further reflection, I've found tinges of hope within these words.

Finding community and solidarity definitely fosters hope. Especially in such a uniquely terrifying moment in history, realizing that Kevin and others feel the same way I do, and that they struggle just as much with nihilism or anhedonia, is comforting and motivates me to try to climb out of that pit of terror. The looped chorus almost exactly halves the song, directly following an Infinite Jest themed stanza that feels like it was written just for me. But then again, the whole album feels this individually connective. This is Kevin's particular magic talent, making each song feel like he's helping you directly, throwing you a life-preserver, even though he's also describing something deeply personal to his own experience.

Even more so than on Instigator, on this latest album he's developed his own signature style and sound. While the previous album focused more on literal wars and the ensuing violence, here he details this war within the self, echoing The Smiths' enduring question: "Does the body rule the mind or the mind rule the body?" Certainly there's still no definitive answer, but the self-war continues, and who better than Kevin to lead us into battle and offer up equally helpful words for both sides? Maybe these dancing, caffeinated songs will help to put the mind aside for a second, and let the body lead us back to reality, to ground us in the present.

The majority of these new songs have an innovative, unexpected, song-within-a-song structure, leading through pockets of surprise emotion in a suspenseful way, keeping the listener wondering what's behind that next corner of chords. I think what's been most surprising to realize is that Kevin wrote the majority of these songs before 2020. What are "I think my brain is broken. Can't push my point across" or "Cradle your anxiety and anhedonia" if not daily mantras for unmooring from the current reality? But of course, the world was plenty destabilizing before these past two years, and the overwhelming, hopeless feelings are just now exacerbated by a disconnection to the future (too scary to contemplate) and to the past (too sad to reminisce). Or as Kevin much more eloquently phrases it, "Down at the end of your day, in the mess you've made, and the bones of your bed, she's a shipwreck."

"How Can I Help You?" is a pop song having a disco party, where you come for the internal rhyme scheme and stay for the therapeutic offerings. It also feels like a sister song to the sentiments in "You Wouldn't Have To Ask". Nothing's Real, So Nothing's Wrong also confronts death in many forms, including the death of ego, of dreams, of illusions, and of the certainty of religion or mythologies. There's no one answer, no one steady way of coping with these deaths. A possible way to cope with literal death is to sing about it in a graveyard, as he beautifully does with "If I'm Gonna Die Here." Another way is to consider if "the afterlife is real", which gives us the searing, haunting "Hell Is An Impression Of Myself": "Now the world's on fire and I've cul-de-sac'd the torture / I can't confront my terror thoughts without a scalpel and a pen." Being stuck in certainty leads to this repetition and imitation of past or false selves, a daily, waking hell.

The album begins and ends with loneliness, but hopefully in between, the listener has gained some self-awareness, rejected some self-pity, and accepted some help from others. "Laurel Leaf" warns us of the danger when we "Cultivate your loneliness til you're a loner": we start to believe our lies and our fragile egos, and we shut people out, "Buried under processing". The closing track, "Stitching Up The Suture", doesn't give us all the answers, but maybe suggests a few more possibilities than existed at the start. "I'm a loner til I'm lonely... / I'll listen. You show me." And maybe it gives us a few more companions at our side, to help and comfort and encourage us as we "Fumble at the future" together.

[auralvelvet]

cover song

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pMrofZwt-Dat15MFtqYkS_sOdW10lJrn/view?usp=sharing

KD / priests & paramedics

[auralvelvet]

Evans McRae album review

Lowri Evans is a Welsh singer, and Tom McRae is an English one. They met at a songwriting retreat and formed their band Evans McRae. Their first album together, Only Skin, will be released on Friday, May 21, 2021.

Scene: As dusk falls and the streetlights appear, you step in out of the summer rain, store your umbrella with the herd of others, and find your place in the stylish lounge, seating yourself in a suede-lined high-backed chair, a cup of scalding hot tea at your side, waving to acquaintances, and settling in as the musicians gather on the candle-lit stage.

At least that's how I imagine the proper setting for hearing the cinematic, timeless new album from Evans & McRae. In reality, it may still be raining, but most likely you're still stuck at home, in an old uncomfortable chair, pressing play on one device and connecting it with another, your wireless speakers broadcasting this modern, innovative collection of songs to your living room. It's still lovely, still a welcome break from the monotony of the day, but it pales in comparison to being in the presence of the creators.

Only Skin progresses in a theatrical manner, almost constantly shifting between the two different perspectives of the singers, as though they're continually entering and leaving the stage once they've said their piece. Yet their feelings often melt together, as they do on opener "Say What You Mean", where they plead for honesty from each other. The title track further calms us with a meditation on the often fragile connection to embodied presence. They sing in lilting, sepia tones: "If only I could take the weight from your chest, you know I would / I will give you all my heart, it's strong enough for the both of us / After all, it's only skin, keeping it all in", reminding us that when it's all too much to bear, we can lean on others for renewed strength.

The mood shifts outward on "Careful", the crooning warning sounds confronting leaders of our world who daily plot to deceive us, while "High & Lonesome" reigns us back in to the duo, the stars of the play, who now sound depleted and distanced, longing for reconnection: "Here's to a fallen star, and a broken heart, and a high and lonesome cry / A broken bottle blues, another whisky tune, but you're still on my mind".

"Love's a Loaded Gun" and "Sleep With One Eye Open" mirror each other with ominous orchestral swells, calling out, "You know me, I'm still the one / I'd live or die for you", only to hear the independent response, "Hear my cry, it echoes through the night / You won't be the one to let me live or die".

The range of feelings shifts once again for the last few songs, with "Hold On" and closing track "Just Falls Apart" offering a shelter from the storm of reality, a reprieve reminiscent of McRae's "Hoping Against Hope". Only after directly identifying and addressing the darkness we're in can we realistically frame it by shining hopeful lights around it. "To the friends we lost on the promised lands / To the bonds we break under your command / And everything I touch just falls apart / And everyone I love just fades away" serves as an essential dirge for all that we've lost - the people and places and experiences that used to help us cope, but the music is still tinged with hope, with a promise to hold on, and with a spark of belief that tomorrow will be kinder.

You can pre-order the album here

[auralvelvet]

God With Us - album review

my friend Robin released a new album in December 2020. you can listen to it and purchase it here: https://robinmclaughlin.bandcamp.com/releases

                    In December of last year, composer Robin McLaughlin’s church chose the theme of Home for their annual Christmas concert, loosely based on the traditional Lessons & Carols program. Little did she know how intimately we would all be acquainted with every square foot of our homes in 2020, or how homesick we would be for our previous, now idealized, shared activities with friends outside of our homes.

           Music is also anchored to strong memories of home life, and in Robin’s new album, God With Us, she reminds us of the ancient biblical story of creation, redemption, and connection, as told through these ten commissioned pieces of music and the interwoven scriptural texts. Throughout the album, she traces the highs and lows of humankind’s relationship with God, and offers solace for heavy losses, along with hope amidst the longing for a place to feel at home with God, with others, and with ourselves.

           Robin welcomes us into her narrative of soaring violins and spaced-out piano melodies with options: listen to the musical journey accompanied with the story of all creation, leading into Jesus’ birth, or listen to the stunning orchestral pieces on their own. Both paths of music evoke waves of nuanced emotions through their innovative, meditative illustrations of the facets of being at home in the world.

           This double album is not afraid of moments of silence, but rather, encourages them with the varying tempos and spaces connected throughout these uniquely modern compositions. The lessons travel through the crescendo of the creation of the world to the echoing silence of banishment from Eden, to the somber midpoint of lessons 4 and 5: “Lament for the loss of home” and “Immanuel”. Here the tones turn darker, mimicking the darkness felt in so many of our hearts while waiting for relief, for a miracle. The impossible becomes incarnate somewhere amidst the ascending, lighthearted strings escalating toward a shift change: Behold! The search for hope has been answered, through Mary’s willingness, ponderings, and through the birth of the Savior. The resounding chorus of strings, clarinet, and piano surge together to lead into a celebration of shimmering harmony, Christ’s arrival to dwell among us.

[auralvelvet]

Visit Original Link

adding to the internets; KD-approved

[auralvelvet]

Interview with Lesley Barth

I teamed up with Audiofemme again to write about Lesley’s new album and interview her as well!

https://www.audiofemme.com/premiere-lesley-barth-nashville/

[auralvelvet]

full stop at the genesis of language / no words for the bottomless depths we felt

musicians who kept me indebted and hopeful in twenty-oh-nineteen:

PLAYLIST

absolute favorites:

Bad Books - III (my album review)

Kevin Devine - new songs: “Only Yourself”, “Margaret Reed O’Shaughnessy”

                      - covers: “Rhode Island”, “The Body Of An American”

Laura Stevenson - The Big Freeze (my album review) 

Pedro The Lion - Phoenix (my album review) 

and the rest in vague order of release date:

Lowland Hum - Glyphonic

An Horse - Modern Air

Black Belt Eagle Scout - At the Party With My Brown Friends

Sigrid - Sucker Punch

Angel Olsen - All Mirrors

Cursive - Get Fixed

Tegan and Sara - Hey, I’m Just Like You

Lucy Dacus - 2019 ep

Superchunk - Acoustic Foolish

various artists - Tiny Changes: A Celebration of Frightened Rabbit

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - The Best Of Everything

concert time in my part of the town:

Kevin Devine (x3), Manchester Orchestra (x2), Bad Books, Pedro The Lion (x2), Lucy Dacus, Lowland Hum, Better Oblivion Community Center, John Samson, Brother Bird, An Horse, Shannen Moser, mewithoutYou, Tomberlin (x3), Jenny Lewis, Angel Olsen, Superchunk, Torres

Andrew Peterson, Caroline Cobb & local friends, Weekend Excursion (local friends), and too many more lovely musical experiences to count from the rest of my dear local friends.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[auralvelvet]

album review of Bad Books / III

For a lot of people, music is just background noise for completing errands, cooking, cleaning, or bar conversations. And if this is the case, they tend to resent any evolution of sound or writing style in their musicians. They want sameness, consistency. For others, music is a lifeline. We want to hear growth and expansive change in something newly formed that still connects to past selves and past albums. Bad Books began to signal their new sound from the album cover transitions alone: from their first album featuring all six musicians’ faces, to their second which displayed six birds slightly merged together, to their newest, III, revealing one composite face of three selves: Kevin Devine, Andy Hull, and Robert McDowell. In the seven year interim since II, they’ve each been musically prolific in other projects, with Kevin and Andy creating entire albums of mostly rock songs – Instigator and Cope, respectively – and then stripping those full-band songs down to acoustic versions for subsequent albums We Are Who We’ve Always Been and Hope. Andy and Robert also composed the soundtrack for the “Swiss Army Man” movie, which primarily featured their a capella vocals. These projects all served as clues to the ethereal soundscape they collaborated on this year, which Andy has aptly described as “wanting to sound like Simon & Garfunkel in space.”

These spacious songs significantly deal with the fundamental struggle of individual agency within the larger context of the interconnectedness of every person. “No one’s alone / or it’s the one thing we are” opener “Wheel Well” claims, completing this throughline later with “we don’t have to be alone / I guess we never were alone / I exist and so do you” in “I Wrote It Down For You”. Each singular person on the planet has a daily choice to use their particular perspective to connect with and live in service to others, or to isolate, embrace inertia, and ignore the collective responsibilities of being alive. Several of the songs demonstrate how having the security of feeling loved and a sense of belonging can be motivation to participate in outward-facing, empathetic actions. Midway through the album, a manifesto emerges: “Love isn’t passive / a trick or a tactic / it’s radical action / so go, let ‘em have it” via incredible song “I Love You, I’m Sorry, Please Help Me, Thank You”. Loving others and loving one’s self, including the previous, less-perfect versions of that self, creates a space of safety, a space for contemplation, and for developing action plans to help other selves in the world.

And yet, the multitude of voices on III also realize that not everyone has access to feeling loved or belonging to a community. This message is most harshly and violently realized in “Neighborhood” and album closer “Army”. The first song describes the neighbors committing a hate crime, and confronts the narrator’s complicity in the crime, since he chooses not to help the victim. “Army”, clocking in at 8:49, nearly one fourth of the album, cycles through several different selves of one man, describing how those selves have fractured post-combat, and how difficult it is to engage with the bodies of those he loves after having witnessed too many other bodies being destroyed by the inhumanity of war.

So how do we choose unrelenting love over pervasive fear? One way to fight through the chaos of the world is to write songs detailing and deconstructing those fears, which I think Bad Books has accomplished here to a stunning effect. Their songs are also sort of prayers: pleas to receive healing, pledges to be more loving and vulnerable, requests for openness to evolving perspectives. As the refrain in “Supposed To Be” reminds us, we can “testify your fundamental need” and choose to express our most authentic versions of self in order to connect more fully with other selves. And, in our struggle to figure out where we belong, we can find community and communion through the lifeline of music.

listen here

[auralvelvet]

album review of The Big Freeze / Laura Stevenson

I’m naturally an extremely vulnerable person, but even I have my limits. My normal routine to figure out how deep I can safely go with someone is to test the waters with some slightly vulnerable piece of information and then see if they respond in kind, or if they bring me back to the surface by immediately switching to a lighter topic.

The bravery Laura Stevenson shows in her latest album, The Big Freeze, is by being vulnerable outside of the safety of hearing a response on the other end. By disregarding the structured path and branching out into the unknown, she transfers some of that bravery to her audience as well. It’s almost useless to try, using mere words, to describe what Laura’s accomplished here: she’s reconnecting herself to herself, and radiating that sheer force of connectivity outward, pleading with the rest of us to be more honest with ourselves and with each other. As I listened through the album, I wondered at the cost of making these songs. I wondered how Laura feels about it now that it’s finished and out in the world, an actual physical object for people to purchase and critique. The emotional demand her words make of her listeners is to agree to open the most vulnerable place in our hearts so we’ll be able to accept her pain, and maybe deal with some of our own deeply-lodged pain along the way.

Her strong, clear voice is the light leaking through the cracks, offering healing through its sheer authenticity. By contrast with her previous album, Cocksure, which contained mostly rock songs, these current songs are spare and sparse, taking us through specific emotions like shame and despair and relieving the weight of them, letting us know we’ll arrive safely on the other side of our suffering. As the lilting, hymn-like “Hum” explains, “You are only the burdens you set in your mind”, while honoring the effect of childhood wounds with the healing line, “And oh, the story goes, that you were raised in half and waiting to be whole”.

The Big Freeze has several movements, like a true symphony. It’s heavy, yet there’s a reckoning lightness floating inside of these melodies. The first movement is the duo of “Lay Back, Arms Out” and “Value Inn”. She eases us in to a difficult theme of the album by vaguely referencing it in lyrics like “And in a Value Inn, I dig at my skin…’cause I’m lumbering, ‘cause I want to be gone”, and more directly confronting it in fourth song “Dermatillomania”. Laura elaborates on her struggles with self-harm in this illuminating essay at Talkhouse, sharing her affliction in hopes of helping others feel less alone. The album also circles back to several refrains, connecting the end to the beginning, like how the opening line “I’m a broken record” effortlessly fades into the perfect last song’s line “settle in, while my record-setters spin”. Moving from her current grown-up reality to a more idyllic time in her childhood, moving from the universal to the deeply personal, she details how these contrasts are all part of the same whole, and how difficult it can be to wrestle with individual trauma amidst the larger battle of trying to sustain the world past a few more generations.

Throughout the album, the details vacillate between the weightless, cold, unfeeling vastness of the universe, and specific boundaries of much smaller containers: “Living Room, NY”, a crowded elevator, a basement, a flooded floor, inside a mind. Bridging the gap between these poles of being are a crane in a skyline, a hawk suspended in the air, a tightrope walker who steps on stairs but will also “clap clouds”.  Recorded at Laura’s childhood home in Long Island, there’s an insular intimacy here that the album invites us into over swells of violin and cello. The countless thoughts, emotions, and scars we cover up in our daily lives start to rise to the surface as we follow the path of the songs, and follow the honesty of their singer, hoping to find a place of belonging in our little corner of the universe. Laura reminds us of our true nature when we’ve lost the ability to access that part of ourselves on our own. She’s not afraid to confront herself by breaking down walls of avoidance and numbness to let these songs run wild and free, like children.

And so we arrive at the closing song, “Perfect”: a study in nostalgia, noting that there’s still a war on, out in the world and within each of us. There’s peace to be found in the music, and in admitting our weariness, yet refusing to give up the fight. To be vulnerable is to express some kind of pain, even if it’s just the pain of daily existence. Laura’s authenticity in detailing her specific struggles culminates in a sort of holiness, with the closing refrain resounding like a benediction: “and damned near perfect, we were, on the spinning earth”.

listen here

[auralvelvet]

My New Year’s Resolution to Listen to More Women Empowered Me

Hello tumblrers! I have an essay that was published on Audiofemme today and it’s about listening to women.

You can read it here.

[auralvelvet]

i guess we never were alone: i exist and so do you / if god is goosebumps, you’re the proof / so i wrote it down for you

albums & concerts that kept me present and grateful in 2018:

[in vague order of release date because all musicians are created equal]

PLAYLIST

First Aid Kit - Ruins

David Bazan/Pedro The Lion - Rare Coins; Pedro singles; “Thread”; concert times

Superchunk - What A Time To Be Alive; “Our Work Is Done”; concert times

Lucy Dacus - Historian

Buffalo Tom - Quiet and Peace

Aisha Burns - Argonauta

Manchester Orchestra - “I Know How To Speak”; concert times

Petal - Magic Gone; “You Got Lucky”; concert times

An Horse - “Get Out Somehow”; concert times

Florence + The Machine - High As Hope

Mitski - Be The Cowboy

The Frail Ophelias - Macbeth

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - An American Treasure

Lesley Barth - Green Hearts; “Pinwheels”; concert times

Jon Batiste - Hollywood Africans; excellent Late Show band leader

Madeline Kenney - Perfect Shapes

mewithoutYou - Untitled, untitled

Hutch Harris - Only Water

Phoebe Bridgers - “It’ll All Work Out”; “The Gold”

Tomberlin - At Weddings

concert times: Eric Bachmann, Wild Child, LIZ PHAIR, Camp Cope, Brian Sella &co, Lowland Hum, I Anomaly, Abigail Dowd, and a Tom Petty tribute concert & xmas concert from dear friends

and the best for last:

boygenius [julien baker/phoebe bridgers/lucy dacus] - self/titled

Kevin Devine - new songs: “Everything Gets Reduced To Its Purpose”; “Kuala Lumpur”; “Outstretched & Never-Ending”; “27th Amendment”; “I Wrote It Down For You”

cover songs: “Prehistoric”; “Into The Great Wide Open”; “No Future In Our Frontman”; “The Body of An American”

concert times: three! f/ dear friends who are newly converted fans! Yes!