Casual rambles, short stories and poetry done casually
“I was this close,” I said, suddenly, interrupting my own train of thought, raising two hands with about of foot of air between them, “to finishing an outline on the damn thing.” But then I thought, if Eskimo Joe only needed deliver halfway on this Girl, then that hands me carte blanche on how to review the damn thing.
Kurt Vile, a vinyl-pressed halo, what a dude, what a goober, he’s a street angel, probably spent his early day hustling the corners, scouting for the best street angles.
The phenomenal instrumentation and musicianship plays into a Bangsian motto of “the grimier, the rockier, the better” and they make that idiomatic approach tick on the every part of their sophomore effort while still allowing for more long-form melodic, harmonic and rhythmic skill.
You have no idea how ready I was to destroy this record.
In the past year, I’ve caught an increasing amount of concerts—20, in fact. A decent count, but it neither gives me any right brag, nor any excuse not to have earplugs. The sum isn’t off the wall amazing, but it is a roughly 2000% increase of my concerts-per-annum rate naught but four years ago. In […]
If there was a long-game to be played on this record, this was it—toying with a Miles Davis line of seemingly nonsensical sonic experimentation until finding that miracle place of otherworldly sound and space.
There’s a similar sentiment every time I put Patterns on as Fowler’s voice picks up on “For Me,” while singing the penultimate verse: she’s right, like all good old friends are.
This time there was no faffing about—I wrote my fiveish questions down in my catch-all journal during the lead-up to DIIV and Ariel Pink—wholly intent on clamming out some answers from DIIV and ignoring the fact that Ariel Pink was even going to be there.
You gotta convince the fools in the pit that…you fell asleep with that thing, your thing, an instrument, your instrument across your chest or under your head, passed out after exploring it with the curiosity of a serial cave diver.
UMO is kinda like a lo-fi prince. And I’m talking the gigolo of funk, the true king of the Eighties prince: capital-P Prince.
The Casual Ramble 