compilation

Sick: A Compilation Zine on Physical Illness

admin — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 16:01:00 +0000

It surrounds us. No matter how difficult, awkward, or painful, we will inevitably come into contact with it. But despite its ubiquity, physical illness continues to be one of the most challenging subjects for people to broach.

Sick is a compilation zine on physical illness that offers up the experiences and perspectives of individuals living with illness. Whether dealing with incurable polycystic kidney disease, coping with cancer, or struggling with an unnamed medical condition, each piece, no matter how distinct, explores common themes of support, communication, and community. Each writer concisely documents her or his personal struggle with illness and sheds light onto the stigmatization of sickness and deep-seated taboos that hinder dialogue. Apart from exploring the painful consequences of living in a society unaccustomed to discussing illness, the writers offer valuable tools that teach us to be considerate and helpful allies.

Sick gracefully navigates its way through a wide range of experiences as it aims to open the channels of communication and establish a collective voice for those impacted by illness. How do we respond when someone tells us they are sick? How many people in our community are transparent about having a disability or illness? What can we do to help each other feel welcome, equal, and supported?

The zine also considers exclusivity within radical/DIY/punk scenes. How does someone’s level of health determine their participation in a particular community? Riding a bicycle, marching in a protest, and dumpster diving, for instance, are activities accessible primarily to the able-bodied. To avoid being ostracized or dismissed, many sick individuals find themselves pushed into the proverbial closet of shame and isolation.

In our culture, sickness is a private affair. We have been socialized to fear or ignore it. Consequently, sick people must not only learn to manage their own disease, but are often burdened with others’ inability to openly discuss and cope with illness. Often racked with feelings of guilt, isolation, and alienation, it is essential that a sick person’s experiences are acknowledged and validated. This is what Sick achieves. It opens dialogue and validates experience. Perhaps we cannot understand what it means to have supraventricular tachycardia, but we can learn to listen and ask our friends how we can provide the support they need.

Though the accounts in Sick can be grim or downright disturbing, the writers’ warm resilience brightens every page with hope for opening discourse and dismantling entrenched social norms. It’s the writers’ heartfelt declarations and earnest desire to create a caring community that makes this read so compelling.

Sick is a compassionate, honest work and a necessary first step toward understanding the complexities of physical illness and building communities of support. It is challenging and tender; it is unprecedented and accessible.

Written by: Sofia Marin, April 15th 2010

Allbums

admin — Thu, 28 May 2009 23:46:00 +0000

By Jeans Team

Louisville Records

Jeans Team started life as a Berlin-based video art performance group, but they soon evolved into making electronic music for the masses. On Allbums, a collection of their best songs and previously unreleased material, I got a chance to sample almost ten years of Jeans Team’s IDM that is as suitable for the club as for dancing by yourself in your bedroom.

“Faul 2” stars out the sampler with a very good, almost minimal beat, with Kraftwerk-esque vocal samples in the background and calm German vocals. It’s clear from this track that Kraftwerk is an influence on Jeans Team, but they’re not copying the German masters, either. This is something different, something very contemporary while still understanding the history of electronic music. On “Baby 3,” a funky bass and '70s funk guitar lick start the song, and blend with synthesizer beats and an array of different little noises to make a quietly funky little dance song that stays in your head long after it’s over.

“Keine Melodien,” the best song on the sampler, has a pumping groove throughout that definitely made me want to get up and dance. I couldn’t understand the literal meaning of the German lyrics, but when the talk-singing turns into a yell, the song gets intense in a way that you don’t need to understand the words. I could definitely see dancing like crazy to this song at a party.

Thanks to Allbums, I discovered not only another band to put on my party playlists, but one to search out for everyday listens. The spirit of Kraftwerk is alive and well in Jeans Team, but they’re giving the legends a run for their money when it comes to pure dancing grooves.

Written by: Dana Reinoos, May 28th 2009

From the Heart

admin — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 23:29:00 +0000

By Aretha Franklin

Legacy Recordings

Aretha Franklin's From The Heart compiles sixteen love songs from the Queen of Soul's exhaustive, five-decades-deep discography. Ranging from the very sentimental to the very funky, it's too short to be a hits compilation, and too erratic for a proper seduction.

It's also largely rooted in the eighties, with several cuts culled from 1982's Jump to It and Get It Right. The former, her first entrance into the post-disco commercial pop sound, was also a celebration of her longevity, marking a transformation of sound and a renewed sense of vitality. This album's songs, namely "Love Me Right" and "I Got Your Love," embrace the funk, and Aretha sounds almost giddy as she playfully maneuvers within the new sound. The call-and-response of her big God-fearing voice and the Me Decade's signature slap-bass makes the listener want to saunter onto the dance floor and wrestle with a new formula herself.

But more songs come from Get It Right, almost universally derided as mediocre. Where Jump to It's lyrical content took a backseat to Aretha's sheer presence, here the schmaltzy balladry is front and center–and Aretha doesn't seem too enthused. She coasts indifferently above cheesy and dated melodies, occasionally breaking into over-the-top vocal theatrics that fail to make up for the otherwise tepid delivery. Save "Every Girl (Wants My Guy)," in which Aretha smartly "breaks it down" to a girlfriend over the phone, the work from this album is, indeed, phoned in.

From The Heartworks best when it reaches all across Aretha's vast career, from the very old to the most recent. The selections off of 1998's A Rose Is Still a Rose, notably the Lauryn Hill-produced title track, find Aretha embracing a more urban sound, and establish her as a voice not only of empowerment, but wisdom. Elsewhere, the jazz standard "Misty" sounds almost appropriate for the Porgy & Bess soundtrack, the music bluesy and timeless, her voice guttural and raw. It's a side of Aretha I feel unacquainted with, and a side worth exploring.

The most memorable cut is possibly the least fitting. In her 1964 version of "Unforgettable," the ingenue sings over a full orchestra; while her voice doesn't carry the power she would develop later in her career, it's certainly evidence of things to come. The young Franklin's greatness is inherent, and the huge, swelling instrumentation seems simply fitting, elevating but not enhancing.

See, Aretha doesn't need help. She just needs to be inspired. Beside her gospel-trained voice, Aretha's longevity stems from her ability to own a song. Much of her best work, including the anthemic "Respect," is penned by men. By the same token, much of her best work is about men. In wrenching these simple love songs from other singers and showing them how it's done, she reiterates two-fold her power. She embodies the feeling, establishes her independence, and earns our respect.

From The Heart, however, doesn't quite capture this. Largely uninspired and listless, much of this seems from the pocketbook or from the depths of a too-long recording contract. Only rarely does it sound, truly, from the heart.

Written by: Sarah Jeanne Lombardo, March 26th 2009

I'll Stay 'Til After Christmas: A Christmas Album to Benefit Amnesty International

admin — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 11:31:00 +0000

By Various Artists

AWR

As far as I’ve ever been able to determine, there are two sides of every holiday, binaries inhabited by people who either rejoice in merriment and love, and the rest of us who find holidays—particularly the wintry, mostly-religious ones—vomit inducing, an excuse to sit alone somewhere and cry. If only I were exaggerating.

I loathe obnoxiously happy holiday tunes for many reasons, and because my birthday is December 24th (the day known to some as Christmas Eve), I get to listen to them straight through my own Jesus-shared time of year. I walk into a department store, and there’s Mariah Carey on the loud speakers, her sexualized Santa-love shared with every hearing person in the Misses section. Don’t you think this should make me even more depressed and aggressive?

The only holiday songs I like are sixty years old, in a language other than my own (because then I can’t understand them!), or that slightly terrible but addictive “Christmas Wrapping” track from the Waitresses. American grocery stores, purveyors of lonely-people music as much as fattening food, seem to take great pleasure in pumping out this song all December (and sometimes starting as early as October), reminding their usual single woman target audience that maybe this year, they’ll meet some cute guy in the aisles. Consumerism for the win! Get shopping, ladies!

I need holiday songs that confirm how miserable I am, how lost I feel in this blissfully happy world of yuletide wonder. I’m another year older and constantly exposed to the new “Joy To The World” remix from the new age, synth-loving clusterfuck that is Mannheim Steamroller. This year, courtesy of my partner’s Scandinavian family, I have five-hour dinners to look forward to, followed by dancing and singing around a candle-lit tree. Lethargy mixed with unpronounceable chaos will no doubt ensue, assuming the evergreen doesn’t go up in flames. Where the hell are my headphones?

I’ll Stay ‘Til After Christmas is the angry person’s redemption. You no longer have to retreat to your Elliot Smith; there is no longer a need to front. “Look, I brought some Christmas music too!” Everyone will be so proud, and you will have the last hostile laugh. Man of Arms says it best on “It’s Christmas Time and Every Thing’s Wrong”; he’s actually deconstructing poverty, war, and religious iconography. Certainly, if you’re going to go pissed and angry about the holidays, go big. So while this track clocks in at 1:35, it might very well be my favorite. On “My White Elephant,” which I’ll pretend is a nod to terrible gifts, duo Arthur and Yu explain, “I didn’t know how I feel.” Numbness as holiday survival is alive and well.

The Turk Dietrich “Blue Christmas” cover is so distorted that you can hardly recognize the original, which perhaps to speaks to our collective inability to admit how gloomy all of this false happiness makes us. No Kids ask how they can “face another winter in a summer town,” and it makes me want to kiss them under some wilting mistletoe. Tracks by Au Revoir Simone, Le Loup, and Sally Shapiro are decidedly more upbeat than the rest, but retain an appropriately somber quality. This sad bastard take on Christmas is finally as angsty as I am.

And who doesn’t love giving money away in lieu of gifts? What if you could do both? All album proceeds go to Amnesty International, and since this is a digital-only release, there is less clutter under the tree and in your everyday life. See? Happy endings to sad stories. Merry freaking Christmas.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, December 1st 2008