#carpark

[great-photography-attributed]

Brutalist Bristol By archidave https://flic.kr/p/2rsx49S

[aistobascistod]

One piece of cod please : Codpiece :: One pod of tetra please : Tetrapod :: One ark of carp please : Carpark

[post-futurism]

Orb by @post-futurism

[sir20]

Seven and apostrophe, Toulouse by sir20

[nofatclips-home]

Woof Woof by Dan Deacon - Video by Showbeast

[sirenveins]

[dustedmagazine]

Dean Wareham — That’s the Price of Loving Me (Carpark)

Photo by Laura Moreau

Dean Wareham sat at the forefront of the slowcore movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with the jangle dreaming Galaxie 500, making “quiet is the new loud” classics like This Is Our Music. His subsequent Luna rocked the 1990s a bit harder, its trance-y tunes studded with complicated guitar licks and sudden explosions of dissonance. Lately he has been spinning out sweetly breezy pop originals and covers with his wife and musical partner Britta Phillips. The constant through all this is an intriguing contrast. Wareham’s music spikes whipped cream buoyant melodies with sharp-edged guitar; his songs are placid on the surface, but prickly and intricate underneath.

That’s the Price of Loving Me is Wareham’s third solo album, a ruminative set of songs that once again taps long-time Galaxie 500 associate Kramer for production duties. It’s clearly a look back. Wareham takes a wry swipe at former Galaxie bandmates in “You Were the Ones,” (“Together we made a somnolent sound, echoes and trails from all that we found, you were the ones I had to betray”) and covers Mayo Thompson and Nico. His voice is untouched by time, still murmur-y, still unforced, a half portion of tune-ful-ness braided into spoke-sung poetry, and his guitar playing still shimmers. A clean line of electric carves through jangle in the Mayo Thompson cut “Dear Betty Baby,” just as it did in “Tugboat” some 37 years ago.

Wareham leans into a lifetime of technique in these songs. “Mystery Guest,” is built on an acrostic poem, each letter of the title another characteristic of a lost friend. And yet, while the format is somewhat fraught, the song itself is not. It sways and glistens, a bit of plucked cello lodged in translucent layers of guitar tone, the beat swirling in slow, nostalgic waltz time. Later, he pays tribute to his first love, a guitar, in “We’re Not Finished Yet,” another waltz. The details are almost sexual as Wareham enumerates all the things he’s done for his instrument. “I sanded your saddle, I polished your frets, I reamed you, I cleaned you, I have no regrets, play for me darling, and do not forget, we’re not finished now, we’re not finished yet.” Steamy, yes?

Lyrically, I like the final track best, a post-apocalyptic reverie called “The Cloud Is Coming.”  It’s serene and untroubled musically, full of gentle sway, but the words are unsettling. “German shepherds from New Mexico, coming down by parachute, see the man in the mylar suit, coming here to burn and loot,” Wareham croons, and we suppress a shiver.

Musically, though, “Yesterday’s Heroes” is the best of the bunch, starting in a pensive mode but building to tidal wave crescendo of guitar sound. Wareham is, indeed, one of yesterday’s heroes, but he’s not done and by no means yesterday’s ghost.  

Jennifer Kelly

[jillraggett]

Plant of the Day

Thursday 29 June 2023

Walking along the main road into Lerwick, Shetland, my friend and I noticed this amazing group of Dactylorhiza purpurella (northern marsh-orchid) which had colonised this dry embankment which was part of a car park landscaping. This orchid is normally found in marshy fields, roadside verges, fens, marshes and sand-dune slacks that remain damp throughout the year but plants will grow in drier places such as old waste tips, abandoned quarries and apparently car parks.

Jill Raggett