H. V. Cramond

Beyond Living

admin — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

As the title of this album suggests, Beyond Living is a collection of folk songs about death, many of them written by musicians who have passed. Alicia Bay Laurel, known for her 1971 guide to sustainable living entitled Living On Earth, collected and recorded many of the songs on this album in response to a number of deaths she encountered in recent years, including, most notably, legendary Japanese singer-songwriter Takashi Donto Kudomi, who died in 2001 at a hula performance. Songs from artists from several countries round out this decidedly international album.

While the album's theme might suggest darkness, the album feels more like a celebration. As Laurel's liner notes suggest “lyrics about death contain valuable instructions for living,” and these songs are no exception. Their cheery melodies, vocals, and a fingerpicked guitar mix with deep sadness in the manner I associate with children's songs (Remember when you found out “Ring-Around-the-Rosie” was about The Plague?) The album invites the listener to engage with the certainty of death and to feel the relish that reality brings to living. Much like listening to the blues, listening to these songs provides a deep and pleasurable access to human emotion.

Beyond Living contains a few medleys that mix thematically related songs, including “Ruminations,” a twelve-minute instrumental track. It also often includes spoken word English translations within the song, a device I enjoyed the first time, but found tiring upon repetition. Repetition, in general, was my primary issue with the album. While I enjoyed individual songs, I found the experience draining as a whole. Perhaps that was the point; after all, what could be more predictable than death?

Written by: H. V. Cramond, March 28th 2010

NIV: 39 & 27

admin — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 09:00:00 +0000

By Nicholas Alexander Hayes

BlazeVox

Hayes' new volume of poetry, NIV: 39&27 is theology that travels. Most people know a story of someone accosted at an airport with a copy of The Bhagavad Gita. Chris Kraus explains on the back cover that the Gideons have "place[d] bibles in motel rooms across America of the comfort of travelers who think they have reached the end of the road" since the nineteenth century. This book, also passed to me by hand, engages both texts, and read aloud, it evokes the resonance of ritual.

NIV: 39&27 is structured into a thirty-nine-line poem for each book of The Old Testament, one-line plates for _The Gita_, and a twenty-seven-line poem for each New Testament book. While each page is spare, the images are rich, inviting your mind to draw naked pictures of sin, suffering and redemption in the white space of the page.

Hayes' Old Testament G-d does his typical avenging but seems to be wearing a blindfold along with his sword. This is what we have asked for, and deserve: "the Lord, your God, destroys the land" (italics mine). Living and dead are engaged in struggle, and Hayes seems to acknowledge that they don't know why that is any more than we do. Instead, the struggle is a celebration of waste and excess, where the seven thin and fat cows I remember from my catechism days intermingle their numbers, and the result is that "His fierce word, anger, send fire into my bones, a net." As Hayes moves into _The Gita_, he seems to be criticizing his own austerity and presenting the idea that man creates this G-d.

In the Bible, we end with an apocalypse, a "happy ending" that reunites fallen mankind with G-d through the intervention of Christ. In Hayes' text, I don’t think Mom and Dad get back together: "the store house windows have poured out enough jewels to spare man's son." But there is hope; although "scripture is our enemy in the world," we can become "idols in the sight of knowledge."

Hayes' work both acknowledges the importance of the works he re-imagines and questions their power to shape the world. There are options, other doorways yet unopened because of the limitations we have put on ourselves. The beginning of the text recalls a command: "'Son of man, eat this scroll I am giving to you and fill your stomach with it.' So I ate it and it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth."_ NIV: 39&27_ delivers on this promise.

Written by: H. V. Cramond, December 18th 2009

Decibelle (10/15 -10/18/2009)

admin — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:56:00 +0000

Decibelle Festival

Chicago, Illinois

The Decibelle Music & Culture Festival was a mixed bag, so I’m going to break it down for you, Clint Eastwood style.

The Good

Me'Shell Ndegeocello is a blessing. My plus-one and I attended her 10 p.m. show at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Lincoln Square, an intimate venue with pews and cafe tables for seats and acoustics that are great for folk music. We walked in during Deep Blue Field, the opening act, which featured cello, violin, a DJ, and projected images. A lot of it was really beautiful, but most of the audience was in a coma by the time they got off the stage. I believe this was part of the intended effect; regardless, it was a nice change from fighting the weather. When the lights came up, the audience's reaction included confusion and lot of murmuring about coffee. Thankfully, The School has a full bar.

The mood change completely when Ndegeocello entered. Small in stature with short hair and giant glasses, she’s powerhouse of a woman with a big smile. She opens her mouth, picks up the bass, and out pours this gorgeous husky voice with a delicate lilt to the upper register. Ndegeocello performed old favorites, as well as songs from her new album Devil’s Halo. Her songs are driving and hard: even the love songs are tough, so much so that it seemed like the venue's system wasn't equipped to handle her sound. However, she had the audience so wrapped up in her music that few people cared.

Sister Spit: The Next Generation was also really great, once it got going. Appearing in this incarnation as a part of Women and Children First’s Sappho Salon Series for lesbians and their friends, Sister Spit is, as Decibelle explains, a queer “literary road show.” Co-founder Michelle Tea hosted a lively evening of fiction and humor, including painfully funny comics by Ariel Schrag and a novel about transgendered teens squatting in San Francisco.

The Bad

The pre-party on Thursday night at Berlin was not so great. In fact, I'd say it was gross. We arrived around 10:30 p.m., and after convincing the door person we were supposed on a list, my guest and I cozied up next to the bar, each with an aptly named promotional “mini-tini” and in close proximity to a giant jar of condoms. As the patrons trickled in, I started to think about life's difficult questions. Would my guest look as good in a high school wrestling uniform as the mustachioed bartender did? Should I start wearing more vests? Did that girl swinging her girlfriend in the air know how close the swingee's boot came to my face? Is it punishment enough that both are now pole dancing with a very real lack of rhythm in front everyone? Why hadn't I seen any of the DJs Decibelle's website had described using many exclamation marks and comparisons to Bjork? An hour and a half into the party, there was no sign of the Chicago debut of Emilie Simon, so we headed out.

The Ugly

The ugliest part of the Chicago festival was Chicago itself. The weather was classic: a painful mix of sleet and rain that felt terrible and messed with travel times for every form of transit in the city. Then, the Chicago Transit Authority in its infinite wisdom began construction on the Red Line, a primary artery of north-south transportation. Between the weather and the CTA, travel times between events tripled for both train riders and drivers. I was late to events, missed the Heartland Cafe's Music Lounge, took hours to get home after late nights, and was in such a surly state I wasn't willing to travel back down to Andersonville for the Saturday night after-party at Ole Ole.

Compounding the irritation of the weather and the transit were the organizational issues of the fest. Of the venues I attended, only the Old Town School seemed to know I was coming and didn't require several minutes of arguing at the door. The Berlin party consisted mostly of waiting. The Decibelle website and Women and Children First had different ideas about when Sister Spit started, so I chose the earlier time and wound up sitting around for half an hour waiting for the reading to start. This would have been fine if there weren't another event going on at the same time, which, as I mentioned earlier, I couldn't catch the end of because of the train.

The Future

I supposed one could argue that logistical issues are just part of the package when you're dealing with the arts, but it doesn't need to be the case. Most of these issues could have been avoided by improved communication between the festival organizers, promoters, and venues. In addition, I don't know that the spreading the events over a four neighborhoods had the intended effect, which I assumed was a cross-pollination of feminist communities. For the most parts, the boys stayed in Boystown for the dance party, the girls stayed in Andersonville at the bookstore, and the patrons of color stayed west of Western Avenue for the soul music. The lack of crossover was disappointing and points to Chicago's long history of segregation. I wish I had been able to make it back up to Rogers Park, one of the city's most diverse neighborhoods, to see how things shook out at the Heartland.

Despite these issues, the festival shows a lot of promise. Ndegeocello and Sister Spit were well worth the hassle; both of these events featured women who challenge ideas of gender in positive ways, and their intersection provided a space for thought about what it means to be a feminist.

Written by: H. V. Cramond, October 29th 2009

Here Come the Vikings

admin — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 23:40:00 +0000

By Astrid Williamson

One Little Indian

Astrid Williamson is a Scottish-born musician, who has been compared to Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac and lists among her influences the canon of American singer-songwriters, such as Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. Though I like where Williamson is coming from on her fourth solo album, Here Come the Vikings, and the album has some decent ideas for pop tunes, I have two major problems with this album: the songs aren’t well executed and don’t provide any surprises.

Here Come the Vikings is Williamson's first self-produced album. Each song on seems to have the kernel of a really good song in it, but this is overshadowed by major flaws of some kind that might have been worked out by letting the song stew a bit longer or getting some additional input. When listening to the album, the thing that stuck out the most was how often I thought about shortening this or that song or choosing different background instruments.

Williamson’s voice isn’t the greatest either. I appreciate that this is her real, unadulterated voice, but on tracks like “Storm,” it sounds reedy and uneven. She sounds better on more sultry numbers like “How You Take My Breath Away” where emotion might appropriately crack the voice. The best track on the record is “Slake,” which features spoken word and seems to only include a chorus as an afterthought.

Of course, all of this would be irrelevant if the songs were well-written and innovative. No one has ever accused Dylan of having a lovely voice, and few question his musical importance. But the songs on Here Come the Vikings just aren’t that great. Sometimes they start out good and then peter out or circle in on themselves. Other times they just annoy. They seem to rehash ideas we’ve seen before—the piano ballad, the more rockin’ song about sex, the breathy, slow number—but without enough surprises to make them worth another listen.

Maybe having a producer is not such a bad idea.

Written by: H. V. Cramond, September 11th 2009

Judah's Lion

admin — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:12:00 +0000

By Anne Caston

Toad Hall Press

I was a bit wary when I received Judah's Lion. Its title and that of many of its poems made clear to me that we were going to be talking about The Almighty, and not in a sort of New Age everything-is-divine kind of way; I’m talking about Old Testament smiting and personal conversations. As a member of the liberal elite who often chuckles evilly as she writes, I had a hard time getting into it at first. Cruddy, I thought, throwing it down. I’ve wasted a good poetry pick on a nurse who writes about Jesus.

The second time I picked it up, I read it straight through and loved it. This change of heart of manifested as an activation of latent Catholicism. No, I haven’t forgotten what il papa said about contraception. I’m referring to a visceral appreciation of spectacle, and more specifically, carnage.

University of Alaska Anchorage professor Anne Caston is, at best, ambivalent toward G-d, despite biblical allusions a-plenty (don’t worry, there are endnotes). He is depicted alternately as Craftsman, Potter, and One-Who-Has-Torn-and-Departed. Caston’s characters are angry, half-formed, and ill, but He doesn’t stick around to fix what invariably breaks once creation has been set in motion. Her poetry, written in deceptively simple language, captures particularly well the disgusting beauty of hospital work, of the futile attempts to give a moment of happiness to those whose lives are on the verge of snapping.

She opens with a poem called “What Seems To Be” and questions her authority as observer and writer throughout the text. How dare she claim and record experiences that also belong to others? The first section, “Judah’s Lion,” focuses on a son who shares his mother’s madness and her gift for poetry, despite his literal bent. The City of God, he claims, is near Stone Mountain, Georgia. “The Story I Sometimes Tell Myself” is a personal mythology; its poems follow the growing-up of a woman and two doomed marriages: one wherein she loves something that will destroy itself and another that she loves after it is gone. The final section, “The Gathering House,” is a house of death: manifold, gruesome, heartbreaking.

The combined force is that of a life where suffering is without end, yet this is not a sad book. In the end it is, I think, a book about love. Her “Last Psalm” celebrates “what I have loved in this life/ the blossoming branch and the locust horde/ the beauty each is, and the terror.”

Written by: H. V. Cramond, August 19th 2009

Blonde Roots: A Novel

admin — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 17:34:00 +0000

By Bernadine Evaristo

Riverhead Books

Blonde Roots begins with a quote from Friedrich Nietzsche that partly explains Bernadine Evaristo’s motivation for writing the book:

All things are subject to interpretation: whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.

Most students of history now realize that it is the story of the victor; oppressed peoples often have that oppression continued through the erasure of their past. In an interview, Evaristo, of mixed English and Nigerian descent, mentions the UK’s lack of acknowledgment of its participation in the slave trade, her Portuguese last name, and migrations endured by her father’s family as evidence of this collusion of language and silence.

Blonde Roots is a novel that sheds new light on the atrocities of the slave trade through two interesting devices. The first and most obvious is the exchange of Africa for Europe. Evaristo’s uncivilized “whytes" are captured by Black slavers with a myriad of technological advantages. This exchange, as Evaristo intends, helps the reader to discover anew some of the ridiculousness of the logic of real-life slave traders.

In a scene that contains many of the book’s more readerly pleasures, protagonist Doris Scagglethorpe’s primary owner, Bwana, makes his first journey to the “grey continent.” His colleague Byakatonda, in the manner of Kurtz in Hearts of Darkness, has gone native in a primordial Eden. Instead of a sweating, starched British man with an unnamed wife, we see a man who has taken to wearing an uncivilized amount of “shit-colored” clothes and has married a savage named Pamela. Bwana, of course, would rather get frost-bite and would never touch a woman without the capacity for language. Details like this seem ridiculous until one considers the historical parallels. Coupled with compelling descriptions of the middle passage, the complicity of locals and neighboring countries, and the condition of Doris’ back after a lifetime of whippings, one feels fresh shock at what once passed for civilization. Readers easily root for Doris and remember the spirituals of American slaves as she is encouraged by others to “wade in the water” and attempt her escape.

A second device that Evaristo employs is the anachronism. While the England of the novel seems to still be struggling through a feudal system complete with armored knights and cabbage farmers, the continent of New Ambossa has guns. This difference can be explained as an attempt to show the reasons for African advancement, ala Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel. If one compares lack of clean drinking water in today’s Africa and to the waste of the United States, Evaristo’s world isn’t much of a stretch. Further, British feudal lord and all-around pompous ass Percy has a foreign madwoman in his attic, which, in addition to being delightful, could with other clues place the novel’s setting somewhere in the nineteenth century.

However, Evaristo inserts technologies and references from hundreds of years in the future, and describes her book as “atemporal.” For example, Doris’ first attempt at escape is through an underground railroad that is actually an abandoned tube system, and the Africans delight in their “chocolate cities” surrounded by impoverished vanilla suburbs. I appreciated the intent of this device—Evaristo states that she wanted the novel to take place out of time, so we can see how it is always occurring—but because some markers were in fact deeply rooted in time and current affairs, I found myself searching for a temporal anchor that was not to be found.

In addition to the obvious structures of these devices, some of the internal plotting was contrived. I found myself annoyed by obvious clues as to how and when important characters would reappear. Refreshingly, the ending was organic and realistic. Because of earlier contrivances, I began to lose my fear for Doris’ safety and well-being, but I was happy to learn that she did not, in fact, live happily ever after in an absolute sense.

Ultimately, Blonde Roots is successful, both as a work of fiction—I couldn’t put it down—and as an experiment with political implications. Evaristo humanizes the victims and, in some cases, the perpetrators of the slave trade and gives readers who thought they knew all of the answers about this important piece of world history new questions to think about.

Written by: H. V. Cramond, August 12th 2009

On Joanna Russ

admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:13:00 +0000

Edited by Farrah Mendlesohn

Wesleyan University Press

Last summer, in an effort to learn more about female writers of speculative fiction (SF), I read Charlotte Spivack’s Merlin’s Daughters. While the majority of the book was a rather boring summary of what the aforementioned "daughters" had written, the introduction posited that all speculative fiction has subversive possibilities. After all, the author is imagining a new world and probably one structured by a new social order, right? Not necessarily.

In Farrah Mendlesohn’s On Joanna Russ, the reader finds that in mid-century American SF, only some ideas are subject to question, and that pioneers like Russ were marginalized, or ignored. In the first part of the book, “Criticism and Community,” contributors discuss the relationship between Russ and the SF community, including readers, prominent editors and other writers, as well as her place as an academic. For example, as Russ moves toward a more feminist perspective, she writes to a popular publication about the lack of female characters in most SF novels.

The responses were many and varied, but a prominent colleague took it on himself to 'set her straight'. It was not sexism that kept female characters out of SF, he said; it was the “cerebral plots” that did not necessitate a “love interest.” On Joanna Russ paints the picture of a female writer forced by workplace bottom-pinching and literary marginalization to explain feminism over and over again to both men and women. Responding to Kate Wilhelm, who said she champions equal rights but is not a feminist, Russ noted, “It’s funny, really; having disclaimed feminism, you go on to define it.”

The second part of the book focuses on Russ’ fiction. Contributors here discuss how Russ’ work shows a synthesis of second and third wave feminisms, the necessity of violence for Russ’ protagonists, and the recurrent themes of lesbianism and homosocial bonds. This discussion is interwoven with the relationship of her writing to the work of Hélène Cixous, Mina Loy, Mikhail Bakhtin, and others. In her fiction, Russ defines, expands, and subverts the “feminine utopia” and visions of women as “good”, i.e., not violent or sexual.

I came away from On Joanna Russ with a huge to-read list, including titles by Russ and important works by feminist writers. This book is a must-read for a student of SF, female writers and academics, or any feminist who has forgotten how close the isolation of the twentieth century is at our heels. I was struck by how far we have come from bottom-pinching in the academy, but also how much still has to be done to create a culture where writing by and about women flourishes. Russ herself says in "How to Suppress Women’s Writing":

When the memory of one’s predecessors is buried, the assumption persists that there were none, and each generation of women believes itself to be faced with the burden of doing everything for the first time… without models, it’s hard to work; without a context, difficult to evaluate; without peers, nearly impossible to speak.

Sadly, according to contributor Graham Sleight, as of 2008, says many of her books are out of print, forcing contemporary readers to track her down in used books stores and libraries. It’s well worth the hunt: her work was crucial to the shape of contemporary SF.

Written by: H. V. Cramond, July 7th 2009

The Dark Red Amulet: Oral Instructions on the Practice of Vajrakilaya

admin — Tue, 05 May 2009 10:03:00 +0000

By Kenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche, Khenpo Twesang Dongyal Rinpoche

Snow Lion Publications

It’s been a while since I read a book that came with a warning label: "As with all Vajrayana practices, Vajrakilaya should not be practiced without receiving an empowerment or reading transmission directly from a qualified lineage master. Please do not attempt to practice these Vajrakilaya instructions without proper authorization and lineage blessings."

Like many texts on meditation that have gone through several rounds of translation, this book was initially difficult to get through but became clearer as concepts and names were repeated. Following the book’s advice to seek guidance from a qualified teacher would, I believe, bring the greatest benefit to the serious student of meditation.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Vajrakilaya, he’s an emanation of the Buddha Shakyamuni, the Buddha of Compassion. Don’t be thrown off by Vajrakilaya’s “cemetery ornaments” or his monstrous consort, Diptachakra, who is wrapped around his waist in, um, “bliss.” Their compassion is so great that they’ve become wrathful, and all of the skulls and other scary items are meant to break down ideas of duality, such as the distinction between clean and dirty.

As with most Buddhist teachings, lineage is an important part of this text. Here is the short version. Buddha Shakyamuni told the wisdom dakini Yeshe Tsogyal to write down this great treasure of a practice and hide it away. Thousands of years later, Yeshe Tsogyal, who is, in case you weren’t already confused, merely and emanation of Sarasvati and of Tara, appears with yet another emanation of Shakyamuni (Guru Padmasambhava) to lead the “crazy wisdom yogi,” Tertön Tsasum Lingpa to this writing. This tertön left more than 5,000 pages of writing, much of which was lost in the Tibetan upheaval of the twentieth century; but the authors were able to compile this book from several condensed versions of the practice.

It took me several wadded up sheets of paper to figure that out, because the information is spread out through the introduction and several later chapters, and the authors often go into great detail about how many stones got caught in Tertön Tsasum Lingpa’s shoe on the way up the hill. It also helps to have a working knowledge of some of Buddhism’s concepts (including bodhichitta, samsara, and nirvana), otherwise, you may get lost on page xiii. As the warning suggests, the book seems to assume that you have some access to a teacher.

Even with the glossaries in Tibetan and English, I felt more like a translator than a reader. Some definitions were vague. For example, when I looked up the term tertön, the glossary said it was a treasure-revealer. That I could have figured out from the context. I was trying to figure out if it was a person specifically or if it could be a book. Other terms have two meanings, such as padma, which means both lotus and wisdom.

The book begins with a prayer, because just reading it is a practice. The prayer is followed by instruction on how to use the book. Roughly half of it is taken up by the practice text. This text is given in Sanskrit, Tibetan, and English. At the end of the Sanskrit lines are sometimes “symbolic letters in the dakini script,” which can no longer be translated except by tertöns who “realize” it. The Vakrakilaya practice is structured much the same as any other ritual, with drawing boundaries of protection, blessings of offerings, the main visualization, and mantra recitation.

As someone who’s always had trouble meditating, I’ve always wondered why, to achieve a state of oneness, one needed to name everything: three stages of mind, broken down into five parts each. Perhaps contemplation of ambiguity or seemingly arbitrary systems breaks down the mind so much that we are finally able to figure out maybe we’re not meant to figure everything out. The core of these teachings seems to be that despite our beliefs that we are incomplete, that we always need to be doing something, there’s really nothing to worry about. While the presentation of how to come to the practice can be confusing, the practice text is clear and what it teaches seem so painfully obvious that it’s no wonder we forget it so easily.

Written by: H. V. Cramond, May 5th 2009

Tegan and Sara (10/9/2008)

admin — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 23:49:00 +0000

Riveria Theatre

Chicago, Illinois

It must be nice to be in a band with your twin sister. Shared skinny jeans, skinny genes, and hipster hair products make costuming a breeze, and a sound-alike bandmate eliminates the technical hassle of overdubbing vocals. Plus, you know the other person so well that you can make fun of them on stage, as Canadian duo Tegan and Sara demonstrated at Chicago’s Riveria Theatre.

“I forgot what a shithole this place is,” my 'plus one', better known as Grace Yip from Grace the Spot, lovingly remarked upon our arrival. The Riv really is the best of all possible places to see a rock show. A crumbling tribute to the uptown neighborhood’s past affluence, seedy recent past, and current gentrification projects, the cavernous building resembles a mix between a subway station, an airplane hangar, and nightmare mix of Phantom of the Opera and that weird pseudo-play in Interview with the Vampire, complete with chandeliers and a not-so-recent green, black, and purple paint job.

Within minutes of taking the stage, the sisters Quin brought up the house lights and asked the youngsters on the floor not to crush so desperately toward the stage because it was making the folks up front nervous. After a few songs, Tegan begins to tell a story about her old apartment, the rotten potatoes that drove her from it, and the song that this experience inspired, but was interrupted by screeching from the audience. Her sister rushed to her defense: “Let me ask you seriously. Did you consume meth or PCP before this show? Did you drink a Monster or Redbull energy drink? Or is it Tegan’s haircut?”

At first I appreciated the banter. Those darn kids are annoying, I thought, glowering from the crotchety seats upstairs. They cheered only at the popular songs and at points seemingly unrelated to what was happening on stage. I enjoy it when silly hipsters get mocked, but so do they - hence the problem of the Tegan and Sara concert.

While cruising the blogosphere for a set list, I found that someone on a similar quest had been chastised by one of her peers who wrote, “No one’s going to be looking at you. They’re all there to see Tegan and Sara.” Right. Looking at them. Not listening to them. It seemed like a scene devoid of any real interest in the music. After reading more comments from this page, it seemed clear from the conversation that the music is a secondary consideration for both fans and haters. Admittedly, I was only there because the tickets were free, but even many of the fans were just there to see and be seen, causing Tegan and Sara to emphasize their scrutiny of audience behavior.

I finally did find a set list for one of their New York shows and some great, probably illegal pictures that closely resembled the ones I saw on Brooklyn Vegan. Most of the songs played early on were from The Con while the older, more well-known songs were played later in the evening. “Burn Your Life Down” really resonated with me that night, but I felt like no one else was digging it. The audience cheered wildly for “Walking with a Ghost,” as well as Rhianna’s “Umbrella,” and by the end of the encore, “Back in Your Head,” most of the audience was on its feet and singing along.

I know that many bands have trouble getting concert-goers to be as excited about their new work as they are about well-worn favorites, but this audience was more excited about the performers than any of the music they produced. They cheered more loudly for the explanation of “Love-type Thing” (the duo’s only love song because "they have difficulty writing about happy things") than for any of the songs themselves. Granted, Tegan and Sara are awesome people. They schooled the audience on the difference between Sarah’s haircut and a mullet, and exhorted us to vote the direction of that haircut (she parts to the left). And I'll admit that I was caught up in it too, almost forgetting to write about how the silly girl behind me who thought it would be “like, so awesome” to be invited along on the tour bus. But at one point, even Tegan asked, “Can we put the house lights down and be a rock show instead of a comedy team?”

I liked Tegan and Sara's music; it was pleasant, driving, and catchy. This rendering of their tunes was even well-executed. But it was hard to enjoy the show while being distracted by the constant interruptions, and I was not overly impressed by the performance. What did impress me, though, was one of the opening bands.

I missed much of Girl in a Coma because I was at Fiesta Mexicana grabbing a taco. When I walked up to the third floor and heard only guitars, I assumed some Godsmack-wannabe band was playing in the wrong club. Ow, I thought, LOUD. But then I heard that voice.

Seventeen-year-old Nina Diaz blew me away. A powerhouse mix that I compared that night to both Joss Stone and Kim Deal, her voice is described by the band as “at turns mesmerizing, hypnotic, playful, thunderous, and soft, and has been compared to artists as diverse as Bjork, Patsy Cline, and Morrissey.” Diaz’s vocals float over the noisy, feedback-laden instrumentals of this three woman band, which lists The Smiths, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and the Pixies among their influences. Tegan and Sara put on a solid, fan pleasing show, but Girl in a Coma is really the band to watch out for.

Written by: H. V. Cramond, October 16th 2008

Small Fomat Handmade Journal

admin — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 14:11:00 +0000

By Ex-Libris Anonymous

I was a bit surprised this month when a children’s story book, in particular Things I Think Of: Sullivans’ Associates Storybook 6A, formerly the property of Rockwood School District No. 27 in Portland, Oregon, showed up with my review materials. Perhaps our benevolent book fairy had lost her mind? As usual, things were just as they should be and it was my mind that had gone south for the winter… er, summer. It turns out that Portland’s Ex Libris Anonymous makes their handmade journals from recycled books and intersperses seventy-five sheets of acid-free paper with pages from the original text.

Before journaling, I could ponder the uses of a stick found on the beach in Chapter One. “Can a chick sit on a stick?” I don’t advise it. If my imagination is on the fritz, I can flip to an excerpt from chapter four and see “the biggest bird Bill can think of.” But don’t get too attached to what’s in mine because each journal is a unique product, and your book could be completely different. Ex Libris’ website boasts blank, silk screened, large-format, smaller and even (gasp) nudie journals, making for the environmentally conscious journal-er, doodler or serious artist to get a paper product fix with relatively less tree carnage.

Written by: H. V. Cramond, July 7th 2007

Aman Iman

admin — Fri, 25 May 2007 02:18:00 +0000

By Tinariwen

World Village

In an age of over-produced, mass-marketed tripe, Tinariwen is a beacon shining from the Sahara. Their 2007 Aman Iman relies heavily on the rare sound of raw, straining human voices and features handclaps as primary percussion. Foremost, there is a voice singing against isolation and violence in favor of a solidarity so desperately needed to improve the station of the Touareg people. Although the lyrics are in Tamashek, the English translation included with the CD confirms that much of the songs’ essential meanings are communicated. The group’s vital, driving rhythms ensure that this cry is one of hope, not of desperation.

Tinariwen has mastered mixing commonplace and innovation to avoid one of the shortcomings of much music that is categorized as “world” - that vanilla, please-everyone blandness that ends up putting one to sleep. The group skillfully sets familiar western instruments to a uniquely African rhythm and also have a skill for improvisation on a theme. Especially on track four, “Ahimana,” where Japonias (whose wordcraft is respected throughout Africa) takes the lead, breaking down a traditional folk song and making it his own. Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, the group’s most frequent lead singer, often passes the mic to one of the group’s 8+ other members, who constantly improvise, and switch again. That is the beauty of Tinariwen, a band whose music-making mirrors their politics of inclusion and is ultimately the sound of celebration. It's the sound made when family gets together, relaxes its internal defenses and remembers what makes them a family.

Written by: H. V. Cramond, May 24th 2007

Elysium for the Brave/Elysium Remixes

admin — Sat, 12 May 2007 01:41:00 +0000

By Azam Ali

Six Degrees

You know you’ve heard that sexy, haunting voice somewhere before. If you’re no stranger to sci-fi, you may have heard Azam Ali’s vocals on the soundtrack of such movies as Children of Dune, Matrix Revolutions and Earthsea, among others. Although Elysium for the Brave is only Azam Ali’s second solo album, the singer has been with world music duo Vas since 1996 and has started Niyaz, a side project whose first album debuted at #1 on the iTunes world music chart. This album has credentials and confidence.

Ali’s voice is simply lovely, especially when paired with Elysium’s richly layered instrumentation and hypnotic beats. The songs, in both English and Farsi, are dark and brooding with Persian, Indian and western influences. Ali sings of wars, internal and external, and the arrangements in her music carry that tension. Despite having all of the right ingredients, Ali’s sophomore effort was disappointing. Most songs on the album leave the listener waiting for a climax that never happens, which is especially frustrating because they are longer than a typical pop song. “From Heaven to Dust” is her shortest song at 4:18; “I am a Stranger in This World” goes on for over 7 minutes. Remixes makes this problem more apparent. Set to overused beats and sliced to its most simplistic, her beautiful but hollow music loses what soul it had. Elysium for the Brave is a showcase for Ali’s voice, and can be enjoyed as simply that, but listeners looking for the emotional intensity it seems to promise will be disappointed.

Written by: H. V. Cramond, May 11th 2007