such loud noise is missing. it will be missed. it has gone missing. it has been missing for many months now. we’ve missed it whiled missed. it will go on missing until it is found. it will be found. i have found it already but it is still missing. it was not hidden, just missing. it is no longer missing, technically, but still missing. have you missed it? are you missing it?
The Octopus Project - Hallucinsts [mp3]
There’s this feeling like birth riding on these rails, emerging into thin air reflected in the window the sky and the clouds towering high above the columns upon endless rising tombstones stuck from the ground deceiving the faint glimmer of sight observing more closely now the writing on the walls for certain they are tombstones telling tales of tubular travel into the outer boroughs borrowing books for bucks, three dollars for a clunker without wheels left walking these streets up and down looking up and down at everything so tall and handsome hanging from the trees trying to perceive the difference between deli between cafe between butchery baiting with smell around the corner finding the intersection unlikely yet here it is so far from the center, a monolithic presence from Roman times descending into the stairwells again before broken glass a shining temple of knowledge below the forefront, ahead of the foreground for running and for talking but be careful what you say to complete strangers on the subway seeking anonymous encounters is an unusual array of the usual suspects drifting with blank stares staring only at the floor below their feet for resting their tired toes from daring to engage one another in a mutual game of crescendo cresting into the atmosphere again seeking past amassed bodies by the millions climbing stairs like sterling stallions assembled with no other purpose in mind but to stamp the earth for eternity stomping with designer shoes constructed for the express purpose of standing expressions beside a man in a peacoat smelling of teenage drama darting, the nubile senses alight before our eyes in volcanic eruptions interrupted installations left half-hung from the banisters bolted studly just so and say you’ll swing lightly just so and say we’ll go into the night just so walking arm in arm through the central repository, a maze of wonder with green fires blazing beyond the piercing needles hanging from the stars twinkling as if it had always belonged exactly as our breath exhales the soggy fashions of our lies let out to play and mingle, mighty fine evening for a stroll she says, “We drove right through this neighborhood and we were lost,” and it’s agreed instead into a loft and then another after another stealing whiskey for Wednesdays and sharing cocaine on Saturdays but anything for a dollar, anything for another with my love of this life lounging and lingering another moment too long in the halls of majestic literature another second squandered and squared away for another time when we find ourselves again by bus or by train in the throes of titanic proportions throughout the wandering Slavic drip dosing once more for the road my dark haired lady of the fright feeling forever we might have found a reason to keep on living like fools found another nugget of gold in the bottom of the pan but can you blame such wondrous souls so young in life leaving behind every last moment that passes forgotten until reassembled in a catatonic chaos like words we will say to each other over and over and over the end.
The Octopus Project is a rhythm and blues band from Austin. The featured song is from the album Hexadecagon. Purchase the music at Amazon | Insound | eMusic.
Future Islands - Long Flight [mp3]
It is a funny thing seeing you these days so far from the past that it doesn’t even necessarily enter my mind except that I remember eventually and reflect on how far away time seems to me these days and I wonder if you wonder too about these things and do you feel like we forgot something, left something behind, perhaps it’s on the table or else it is still with us hidden in the pockets of our pants or the bulges of our bags and do you suppose that if we aren’t the same now as we were then that those people we’re simply not you and not I and instead they were parallel people and in a way, we are constantly living in alternate realities and divided dimensions when you think of it that way and there are no choices amassing, just distorted mirrors reflecting most of what we see now different enough that though we recognize the picture in the glass, we know it to be someone else, someone otherwise, someone regardless of the nature of existence and the options that now present themselves are wholly isolated from the big eye in the sky, a picturesque descending from the clouds in some fiery ball of memory and forgetting all the time the mistakes made massing manage to derail the positive reinforcements and then we find ourselves reflecting and isn’t it funny how we can be so different yet exactly the same in our peculiar proclivities pertaining to our prescient ways, a persistent reminder of the person that was is now and still isn’t exactly what we expected it to be?
Future Islands is a rhythm and blues band from Baltimore. The featured song is from the album In Evening Air. Purchase the music at Amazon | Insound | eMusic.
Alex Tedesco - I Don’t Want To [mp3]
Tallboy tender, tellingly tethered until the cold caved into my hands. The rotational pull of escaping air from a puncture the size of a thumbtack. En route for tacos on a Tuesday, we encountered a flattened wheel flattening and embarked to walk the remaining distance between the site of the incident and the site of fifty cent taco shells full of sopping wet beans slopping from their crevice onto a paper plate too thin to conceal the moisture from the table and we’ll use plastic forks to scrape up those lost toppings, peeling imperceptibly the bleached cardboard fibers and maybe scraping all the way through just slightly to the unwashed surface below, consuming from our forks whatever substances happen to happen upon the tines. She walked with the injured bicycle, her limp mimicking the lopsided reeling in the front and her forearm tensed at having to lift the frame slightly away from the pavement so as to prevent any damage to the rim. There was a slant in her words delivered at the angle of one who cares deeply about challenging the notions of “setback” or “inconvenience” as we considered the probability of having to journey homeward from the bar exactly as we arrived.
She asked, “Precisely how much beer does one need to drink to be OK with walking a crippled bike three miles through the cold night?” We settled on four and once arrived, we secured our bikes to whatever signposts were available in the vicinity and actually the sidewalk was far more free of bicycles than in times past on account of the nearing snow above in the sky, and downstairs in the basement bar the seats were far more free of people than in times past on account of the nearing snow above in the streets, and at the bar we received service far more free of pretension and disdain than in times past but probably that had nothing to do with the snow. Tacos and beer were consumed in a predictable fashion and as the time neared to depart, the snow began to fall.
For as long as I could remember she would walk with her bike in one hand and a can of beer in the other, silhouetted against an array of sordid soaking fabrics falling through the hot bright streetlights of Main Street. The snow left wonder racing through our minds at such a tropical locale being visited upon by the solid moisture mainstays of our long forgotten motherland. It sat awkwardly on the palm trees before sliding from the leaves onto our bodies and we rolled walking in the sheets of foam melting into our clothing. The four beers fell short of warming our souls for the three mile jaunt and we soon found ourselves on the outer periphery of downtown, tallboys in hand. The snapping crack echoed through the menacingly manicured welcome rug which sat at the foot of the only skyscraper in town causing the both of us to laugh presumptively at our brazen display of public intoxication. Her hands were home to superior circulation and I found myself soon unable to contain what little warmth remained in my fingertips. The can was abandoned at the corner and for the remainder of the walk, she cackled wildly at her perspective by incongruity, at the settling sun in my heart, at the sheer abuse endured to do something just a little different that night and once upon the porch smoking a parting cigarette, we agreed that it were quite alright to do stupid things sometimes.
Alex Tedesco is a rhythm and blues band from Michigan. The featured song is from the album Future Strains. Purchase the music at Bandcamp.
The Raincoats - Red Shoes [mp3]
The computer could only run Windows 95 but he thought it would adequately serve his purposes. He sat on the floor considering geographic options. The table had the advantage of being a table near the window, but that was the only surface available for eating his meals. He drew his gaze from the logical solution and cast his sight across each wall. The room lacked a desk, it should be noted, is why it wasn’t installed in the default location. It should also be noted that the room was the full extent of the apartment. The southwest corner was unoccupied except for a pile of cigarette boxes he was saving for an indeterminate art project. He wasn’t an artist though and he wasn’t feeling particularly charmed so he had already determined to dispose of the boxes to make room for the computer should he decide on that corner. As suddenly as he made that determination, he decided against that location for mysterious reasons. Probably the charm returned to him. The closet was strangely large for an efficiency apartment, possessed an inexplicable window and was largely unused on account of his lack of style. However, he was not at a point in his life where he could feel comfortable writing poetry on an ancient computer in a closet. Later in his life, after years of travel and countless lovers, he would spring at such an opportunity were it to arise simply for the novelty. Girls love novelty and think so much higher of a person if he possesses quirky habits. The kind of girls he preferred especially. That left the southwest corner.
He thought the computer tower looked neat standing freely away from the wall as its own wall boxing the monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers into the corner and so that is how he arranged the equipment on the floor. He powered on the computer and watched the Windows 95 boot process. He was hunched over the peripherals with legs crossed, his left elbow jabbing into his inner knee and his right elbow pivoted to provide the optimal angle for which to maneuver the mouse. Windows 95 was taking a long time to start and his back had already begun to hurt, particularly along the lower spine. He hadn’t owned a computer before and it didn’t seem so absurd to set up the machine on the floor. Now though, he wondered if maybe that wouldn’t really work. Years later, he’d spend hours at a time in a position similar to that required of his first computer, in its first configuration. It was something of a protest and it did wonders for his concentration. He thought for a moment and decided it wouldn’t be so bad to have to move the keyboard out of the way to utilize the table for eating.
The boot process completed, he shut down the computer. He disconnected the components and relocated the computer to the table. The boot process took a very long time once he had reconnected the components and pressed the power button again, but it didn’t take any longer than it had the first time. It’s just, that whole process took a notably long time. He crossed his legs and looked out the window at the gravel alleyway. There was a dark stain in the dirt that was roughly the shape of the state of Georgia. Years later, that stain would remain and he’d imagine while walking across concurrent parking blocks in the lot beside with a feeling of supreme accomplishment at such a feat of continuous balance that the Georgia shaped stain would be his demise one day, that one day it would burst into flames as he passed over it in his car. He would accelerate as the first flames leapt beyond the hood of the car, driving into the street at the end of the alley without first looking to ensure the absence of cross traffic as he turned left toward First Avenue where a car would strike the drivers side window as it raced to make it through a yellow light. Even if it didn’t happen, it would make for an interesting story he thought as the Windows 95 welcome chime rang over the speakers. Of course, he wouldn’t recall that what he imagined later in balance was one of the first stories written on that ancient computer because he couldn’t imagine then the danger a computer placed so near the window faced or how comprehensively his memory would be erased as he placed more and more information into the machine.
The Raincoats are a rhythm and blues band from London. The featured song is from the album Odyshape. Purchase the music at Amazon | Insound | eMusic.
Beach House - Gila [mp3]
It was on a bike again that my tethered, leathered thought felt free to feel forever again like this was going to become a butterfly in commotion fitted to flitting in flits of fits, tits for tats fighting for space in the air we breathed sucking kisses against the battered batted wings barging into our face and daring our nose to inhale, exhale, impale such fragile fabled fabric fleeing to fly freeing our eyes to an abundance of audacious beauty. And remember when I said that we bleed love in puddles down the drainage pipe? From the porch each cigarette we smoked was an accord, a treaty of peace and together we leaned against the banister staring at the mattress below, discarded and discovered, one after another, each ash flicked and it floated flights of stairs invisibly descending step-by-step into the sopping wet disgrace. Upon each landing there was a crumble, a spattering of crumbs crammed into the corners to cover up a congealing of the head strong wondering, “Will I make it through to the other side again?” I could smell the nearby swamp water with all of my senses delighting at their newfound surroundings, uncovering with a delicacy best dealt to a man with the winning hand and in my eyes I could see an embrace of those butterflies circling the trail left by you in layers on the paved road, a wormhole dropped in front of my eyes to crawl into slowly and I abide, I leveled my body perpendicular to the butterflies and I looked deep into something unknown. I went searching for something unknown. I found something unknown and we decided it something unknown. I made it through to the other side and once again netted your surprise, in a criss-crossed white halo protecting us from the bugs, you looked toward me with the waning light of the day in your gaze and against the satin clouds clearing the forestry, a single spider spun a web spanning the distance from the earth to the stars, an elongation began in the morning only to find the strand destroyed once again, the nightfall befell our savory arachnid’s best paid silk and finest wine, we drunk in the curious forgivings and misgivings, presented without comment and colluded against for many months. On that night, the spider forgave the universe it’s trappings and told the tale another day of a boy and a girl, tied together by a single shoelace, dangling from a mobile circling the sun, constantly in chase of their sunken hearts.
Beach House are a rhythm and blues band from Baltimore. The featured song is from the album Devotion. Purchase the music at Amazon | Insound | eMusic.