The first decade of the twenty-first century is almost over, and we still consider the post-rock reservoir of musical innovation to be pure folly. Though there are still bands that can interpret the sounds of Mogwai & Co. with extreme precision and dignity (see “our” Port Royal, the Low Frequency in Stereo, This Will Destroy You and a few others), it is undeniable that the vast majority of contemporary post-rock is marked by what can only be termed a mannerist period.

 

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Today is a free for all of whatever music we feel like playing. If you have a request just send it psychically to us in the past, while here in the present, Gabe will be reading from various situationist comic strips for Book You! this week, not to mention Gabe’s Guide to Getting Lost. Also, this week, the pipes are angry because Gabe is about to head out to Eugene, OR, and Malcolm is about to go on tour (as Lineland) and with Animal Hospital, all of which means this will be our last podcast (though episodes of Twilight at the Lady Jane Grey College for Little Ladies will continue to be posted weekly for those of you who have become addicted to this touching tale), which means that at last we are free, and we can hardly see in front of us. Indeed.

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Named after the 19th century Hungarian composer, the Liszts, however, are a combo singing in both Mandarin and English alike. Their diction and phrasing give away an American heritage and while (obviously I cannot account for having any detection quality when the language in question originates from a country I have never been to) also that of China. As foreign as that may all seem, the Liszts deal in rather familiar ethics. And before you even became aware of it, the Liszts embrace sounds that one would not be able tell apart from that of other established indie rock or college radio starlets, so let us forget about any exotic ethnicity for once.

 

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This is the podcast you’re going to want to listen to only once, those albums you get at the record store and you’re like whoa, and then you never listen to them again. These songs are like strange dreams that you tell your friends, and make Gabe think of the strangeness of life and the strangeness of fiction, about who we are, and we’re going, and why we’re going there, which may be partially because Gabe is about to move to Eugene, OR to work as a wildland fire-fighter, which he really thought he would never do a second time, while Malcolm once went to a laser light show which was terrible, but he’s glad he went the one time to get it over with, although most of Gabe’s stories of things he is glad he only did once are not for virgin ears and so if you want to hear his humiliating tales write to mail@mutablesound.com. At some point in the hour Gabe has a breakdown concerning the fact that he and Malcolm in fact listen to many of these one-time albums over and over again, and Malcolm cannot believe that Gabe is actually afraid that Van Dyke Parks could perhaps listen to this podcast and come away with the belief that we do not hold him in the highest esteem, which would be false. This week for Book You! we read I Was a Teeny-Bopper for the CIA, by Ted Mark. Listen to the podcast from start to finish, and you’ll hear Gabe use the word “periphery” once too often.

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(Another manifesto by Mutable author Harry Polkinhorn, author of The Manifesto of Negativity, published by Mutable in 2003 within the collection, Manifesto I. Enjoy, and if you do, enjoy it that is, more information on the author can be found here, or you can visit him at harrypolkinhorn.org.)

 

1
America hates sex in general, but it especially hates orgasms, the pinnacle of the experience. It hates that which it doesn’t understand.

 

2
America if nothing else is an ideological construct. But so is sex, and so especially is orgasm.

 

3
The value is on change, and the rapidity of it. Burn your bridges. Don’t look back. This doesn’t change the way it worked for millennia but a kind of hyper-change, or high-speed motion that moves us out of a Newtonian sociality into chaos. Orgasm then becomes a strange attractor.

 

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Another themed podcast this week. This week we are going to be doing story songs, or songs that tell a story. We live lives that are stories in themselves, although the never-ending story, or rather eventually it ends but Gabe won’t be around to see the credits, but there sure are a wide range of story songs, from first person story of my life sort of thing, to third person, to back and forth dialogue, and we explore them in traditional british folk, country western, soul music and on the whole a lot of sad songs, though sometimes these tears aren’t tears of sorrow, but tears of joy at some absurd rendition of another’s suffering, from death row to blindness to those who are checking out when others are checking in. She was supposed to be at home minding the kids, but alas she was at the motel. Gabe and Malcolm argue about whether Famous Blue Raincoat qualifies as a story song, and then of course, there’s our own story, Twilight at the Lady Jane Grey College for Little Ladies, still running with episode 22 this week, in which you’ll find demon possession on all sides and a tryst interrupted midcoitus, and for Book You! this week Gabe reads from a collection of short stories by George Saunders called In Persuasion Nation.

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Boyer’s influences range from William Faulkner to David Lynch, from Hunter S. Thompson to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Jorge Luis Borges. A Survey of My Failures this Far, his third book to be released through Mutable, is on the one hand just what it purports to be, a collection of materials (mostly narrative) from Boyer’s library of unpublished manuscripts, but it aspires to be something more, and perhaps herein lies the failure, what Faulkner called the “splendid failure to do the impossible.” Descriptions of each individual book within the larger collection to be found below.

 

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Besides being a frequent cause for derision from my fiance, music that falls into the “ambient-drone” category is a staple for me. It lends itself to heavy headphone affairs in which I can be completely lost in washes of synths and looped guitar distortion to a diligent companion to late night War and Peace read-a-thons with Addy. The only downside is that when I hear an amazing instrumental album I immediately get a sense of sadness once the giddiness goes away, I think, when am I going to listen to this again? When can I recapture the thrill of the first time I heard this? The good thing about bands that fall into the ambient drone camp is that they always retain a sense of “newness” at every listen, without recognizable hooks or melodies each song is a limitless resource of sounds and musical ideas that gather weight with each listen. Animal Hospital’s Good or Plenty is an album in which every song is as fresh and exciting as it was on first listen (as exciting as an ambient drone album can be). is a remarkable recording full of sunny, beautifully recorded instrumental forays into sound and texture. Kevin Micka is a masterful sound manipulator, taking seemingly standard song arrangements of guitars, drums, turntables, hand claps and the human voice and creates looping soundscapes that are rife with discovery. Never giving into the temptation to let his wanderings turn into an irrelevant wad of noise, Micka lets his instruments prop up each song giving them of a depth of a fully fleshed out pop song. His layers of shiny guitar washes over processed feedback and manipulation put him in the ranks of Aidan Baker and Christian Fennez, while his aural dexterity and dedication to creating beautiful soundscapes recall a Talk Amongst the Trees era Matthew Cooper. Good or Plenty is what I am guessing is a companion to his full length put out on the amazing Barge Records earlier this year, I’m guessing they both go in my list of favorite instrumental albums of the year.