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rjmorrisonuniverse-blog · 4 years

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The Inklings

Everything about him was incidental. His six foot four height that seemed both casual vibe and imposing. (and the way it caused me to look not at his eyes but the top of his head, making him seem even taller) His shockingly dark gaze of a fire roasted chestnut depth that took on the after-dark tonality of ink black. His wild dreadlocked waist length mane that he often pulled together in a hemp-like weave, or net, or full-body seaweed surround, and its soapy but not unpleasant note when the winds blew. The winds were blowing when I met him. Blowing in off the strait with trademark Pacific freshness that cut across summer's heated intent. I was on a gentle grassy knoll in a charming seaside town named Sidney, its harbor and long wooden wharf a slice of heavenly view toward the gulf islands and distant Canadian mainland. There on an otherwise typical gorgeous August afternoon, enjoying my “grande” Pike Place blend with the lid off, a tall shadow stretched its presence into my zone of solar vitamins.

"Sweet guitar", his voice was deep and rich. I looked first not at him, but at the old well-loved and travelled Yamaha beside me on the grass. Then up. Way up from his sandalled toes, past the cargo pants and navy blue t-shirt, to his penetrating but openly friendly eyes. He squinted at my own squint, and dished up an instantly warming grin. "Do you play?" I asked. His answer was a wordless fluid bending of knees to where he sat cross-legged a couple of feet to my right. He nodded slowly and laid a large long-fingered left hand across the sun baking top of my trusty old acoustic guitar. With a long thumb nail he scratched lightly along the bottom E string until softly plucking a delightful harmonic at the fifth fret. It sang out into a precise breeze blended tandem voice as his hand raised and floated over the sound hole. I swear I could hear the harmonic note bending itself into a higher octave before it faded into the inaccessible aural dimensions that surely exist in perpetuity beyond our human capabilities. (imagine an entire universe sounding with the amassed notes of all music ever made)

I do realize that in the telling of this, I perhaps sound like a smitten female or a male of gay preference, but no... this was his outright exuding incidental charisma. He arrived at the end of a long encroaching grass shadow, on a perfect summertime afternoon, with his beautiful aura and instantly alluring presence. Arrived when I most needed it, for I had been considering suicide that very morning. That very morning when the hours from six to nine had brought in overcast conditions and the lingering (festering) wounds wrought by a love torn away.

In the compulsory interest of a quick backstory, suffice to say that a woman whom I had given my whole heart to decided to run off with a handsome architect from the Seattle area, who she had fallen for on Facebook. Such was the cold shock and abruptness of it all, I didn't even bother with the formality of grovelling. Me, mister financial underachiever with his creaking dreams of making it through song writing and landscape painting... yeah, right. (stoked to create, loathe to sell) Even though I totally lost my composure during our last face to face exchange and called her a word that begins with 'w' and rhymes with floor, I admitted deep in my heels that she had chosen well. And speaking of floor, I was.

It is hard to believe now, post love-disembowelling, that I was actually going to cash in my chips over her. "Ayte" was the divine intervention star. He sparkled so brightly and suddenly during daylight's most needed hours, even if it is true that I reclined on Sidney's grassy knoll and sipped from a happy feeling coffee. Contradictory? Sure. I put the dick in that word, some days. What a strange name, I remember thinking as he extended a down-angled right hand to shake mine own up-stretched. Ayte, pronounced like the numeral. "Yeah, I know" he offered laconically - "spelled ay why tee ee." Well in hindsight, of course. "Cool name" I told him. "Mine is just Fred." We then shook hands and I was struck by the coolness of his untanned skin. Despite those reddish brown dreadlocks and what looked to be a very aggressive five o'clock shadow of dense packed black, Ayte had the epidermal wraparound of an albino.

I mentioned down-angle and up-stretched a moment ago, regarding our first handshake of two that would bookend the relationship; it must be confessed that even sitting on the same incline beside each other, the disparity in our sizes was glaring. I am a very small man. The genomic fates had it in for me, or so it felt quite often, in bestowing a mere five feet and four inches of stature. North America seemed a land of giants as I grew up and suffered the ignoble pituitary gland gauntlet of high school... I bore an average face in a nondescript body that decided to stop growing somewhere around solar year sixteen. Bitter? You bet. The pimple-faced teenaged version of Fred carried around just as much carnal lust as the next kid, but his cards were all jokers. It wasn't so much that I was mercilessly teased or rejected in school, but that I shut myself down and stopped even daydreaming about finding a girlfriend. Sex? Losing my virginity occupied a shelf next to finding the ultimate truth about why we exist. I recall far too many barely contained screams at a world of towering classmates and gorgeous west coast women who may as well have occupied a visible but unobtainable dimension...

and I digress.

"How long have you been playing, Fred?" asked the casually striking new acquaintance beside me. I looked at his interesting profile (the nose so wide and flat at the nostrils) as he gazed out at scattered gulf islands in their glittering deep blue waterbed. "I just turned thirty five and have been playing since my fifteenth birthday." Ayte nodded as if he had already guessed the amount of years, and his ropy dreads splayed out behind an elongated rake-thin torso. "Dude..." he spoke the word in a way that had me thinking he had never uttered it before. "Why don't you play me something?"

I can't explain it, but normally I would have been ultra self-conscious and refused the request, especially from a stranger who had just blown me away with a single scraping plucked low-E harmonic. This being an afternoon following a dismal morning where I had seriously considered drowning myself into another cosmic dice roll, what did I have to lose? Face? Surely not. I am an accomplished guitarist, and dare I say a formidable songwriter who lives always a decade ahead of his curve? That zit-faced horny boy in a short man's future; he once upon a time found only one solace. In a Yamaha acoustic guitar with Dean Markley bronze-wound strings. My first and only true love. At Ayte's request, and then peering into his friendly inviting curious eyes, I thus responded with a half-smile half-sigh of "fuck it, why not?"

Of the many sorrowful sounding pieces that I had channelled from gods-know-where, there was this newest composition still brewing. It sat on the universal dial between heart trauma and acceptance; I had begun working on it during the aftermath of her decision to eviscerate me in favor of Seattle guy. (have I mentioned that he stands at a commanding six foot three inches?) This untitled nugget of woe notes found its root within one of my favorite tear-jerker chords, A minor. With a long stare out at the impossible blue of gulf sea, and me, I picked up the Yamaha and began to quietly play this unfinished work. The first two verse passages build from A minor. They are played without a pick and I gradually color the low A root note with tender arpeggios and saddened bends that climb up and around a crying out loud D, also minor. I could absolutely feel Ayte's rapt ear. Peripherally my eyes imparted that he wasn't watching as I played. I could still see him gazing out to the same horizon as mine. In my heart of hearts I knew this to be the finest composition I had ever started. Blood from a life not fulfilling had somehow trickled from my fingertips into the well-worn wood and four month old strings. I played with a fragile blue sensitivity for the tall lanky stranger, and didn't worry one moment about the missing middle eight bridge section that mirrored the man's first name. (astounding, comical universe, I would later muse)

He was silent for a good long moment after I ended the solo performance and sat cradling the guitar, like my baby, my lover, chin down in the graceful bend of its side. I heard him sniff, once and long, and realized with a muted shock that he had been moved to tears. Still not looking directly at him but across the water, I could see his hand come up to swipe at both eyes. "That was beyond beautiful" he started, "and so sad. I just can't believe you people continue to write such wonderful music in such a limited format."

I ignored the closing remark and glowed inwardly at his praise, until the curiosity of what he said got the better of me. "How do you mean, limited format?" I allowed myself a direct look and sure enough, tears still blurred out the deep brown of his eyeballs. Ayte stared first at me, then down into the Yamaha's weathered finish, and I added "and also what do you mean by you people?" He smiled then, a close-lipped one that for a fleeting moment caused him to appear monstrously unsymmetrical. "Do you have a car?" he asked casually. "Can you get to the ferry?"

I answered in the affirmative and Ayte regained his feet in one smooth motion, looking down at me with a sun halo backlight. (this is one freaky star child hippy, I remember thinking) "I don't know if you have plans for the evening, but I'd like to invite you to a sneak preview of my new band's material. I recently rented a place on Salt Spring Island and we rehearse there four nights a week. I could pick you up at the ferry terminal tonight, at seven?"

How was I to refuse? Rewind a few hours and I was on the cusp of pitching myself into the cold indifferent blue of lady Pacific's salt water. "It sounds like a cool idea" I answered, not hesitating even though my belly issued a warning. "I can drive myself to your place. I'll meet you at seven and you lead the way." Ayte smiled anew, nodded, then looked out at the clouds above the island where he lived. "We are deep in the wide open, at the base of a mountain near Vesuvius Bay. You're going to love it." With those words and my returned smile and nod, Ayte turned and then strolled away on his long thin legs. He headed toward the main street of charming Sidney, where blue-haired retirees white knuckle their way through potential fender benders every day of every week. I remember thinking of how abbreviated our first meeting was, yet of how I had thrown my shield away and offered up a raw new song and a willingness to try on something sudden and offered.

"Hey, Ayte!" I shouted to his retreating form. He stopped and did a one eighty, hands in his cargo short pockets. "What's your band's name, man?" The two word answer came across the distance between us in a way that intersected time itself, and I certainly experienced a devastating deja-vu upon hearing it : "The Inklings". I would have further shouted a positive response, had not the hint of I-know-this-already smacked me in the face. Ayte turned back to his exit trajectory. I looked at my watch, then out at the fluffy white cloud bank above Salt Spring Island and gulf environs. A beautiful glowing gossamer, almost sparkly from within, casting down cotton candy reflections in the waters of a paradise for those who truly see. I had five hours to kill, but at least I wasn't killing myself.

It was another half hour before I picked myself up off the grass, in much improved if not almost ecstatic spirits. Strange. I felt turned on in a parallel but different way to the sexually aroused feeling. Ayte was such an odd dude. His soapy hair fragrance and indecipherable Jesus-ian vibe lingered around me for hours, and I kept repeat hearing that incredible incredulous thumb nail harmonic note... he had those Hendrix thumbs that could wrap around a neck to phrase bass passages to underpin rhythm patterns. I recognized my newfound verve as a sheer pulsating excitement over the prospect of hearing the guy play guitar. If he could do what I suspected he could, what would his band sound like?

"Cool name" I proclaimed over the air rushing through my beater of a Toyota as I left Sidney by the sea and made my way to the tiny one bedroom apartment that I loosely called home. I lived on the outskirts of Saanich, not far from Bear Lake and many other paradisiacal locales that had shaped my adult years but not saved me from the cruel talons of heartbreak. "The Inklings" I said aloud, chuckling. Then I dovetailed, or downward spiralled, into a reverie about what Cynthia would have made of mister six foot four Ayte. He was instantly impact-full. He was casually but boomingly charismatic in a way that bisected sexiness and an exotic heady strangeness. Yeah, I thought, punching down harder on the gas pedal, Cynthia would have wanted to fuck him. She was entirely wired for response to those of a highly interesting aura, be that response a keen wish to know more that bypassed womanly feelings, or that which was easiest for me to believe lately; that she wanted to branch out and truly taste-test the waters of depth within potential lovers and great loves. I wasn't the guy. One wild year and one completely offered heart, mine, had not earned her unwavering interest and devotion.

I had suspected early on that Cynthia didn't have a lot of respect for my lack of "drive" to participate in the grand charade of society. I had always drifted from job to job, mostly part time, and my heart had belonged to music making and painting, if not the unsavory chasm that I could not cross : subsisting through the selling of my art. It was a thing that I didn't disapprove of for others, of course, but personally I found it reprehensible and limiting to anything further that might issue forth through my humble channel. Silly? Hell yes. Thirty five years, dwindling funds from my inheritance, and the loss of that one woman who had liked me enough to say she loved me... f-bomb f-bomb ad infinitum. It took ten kilometres and some mental doing, but I eventually shrugged out of the momentary funkification and regained that golden anticipatory shine that Ayte's energy had lit within me.

I looked at my watch before pulling up to park in front of the squat 1940 apartment building that housed me and my trusty Yamaha : I had four hours to kill, but at least I wasn't killing myself.

Hindsight and retrospect being strange twins, it is true that I probably could have done without the fat west coast bud that helped me through my remaining hours in wait. Clearly I was jacked up over hearing Ayte and his bandmates. I sat at home with my ass meat deeply planted into the sagging sofa cushion, breathed back mama nature balm-smoke, and considered whether or not to bring my acoustic guitar along. It was always with me. Had I decided to leave it behind, it would have taken the breaking of my entire pattern because it was always in its gig bag and laying across the back seat of my ride. I'd been a semi-regular on Salt Spring island, anyhow, and it is a zone for the earth children to kick back and shamelessly exult. Wiccans, pagans, outright stoners, a whole lot of artists and "green" this and that types... certainly a holy land of acoustic guitars, folk music, and interaction via jamming. It was a no-brainer to bring my trusty Yamaha with me, and I luxuriated on the sinking sofa with a no-brain sensation, nodding to some vague incoming music signal idea. I still needed to write a bridge for my newest, saddest, most "felt" beautiful piece. Maybe The Inklings would inspire it?

The time arrived leisurely. Those butterfly wing knots went away only to be replaced by that stereotypical post-smoke hunger, and I wolfed my way through the remainder of a large tub of store bought potato salad, with a tall glass of carbonated spring water. During the drive up to the ferry terminal I listened to my most recent recordings, silently pleased and paradoxically pissed at a world that settles for so little when it comes to popular music. The sweet with the bitter, bitches. How to know sweetness without so much suck? It took the usual amount of time, and minor headache, to pay for the ferry and get the Toyota positioned on deck. It was a typical glorious early evening as I crossed the depthless looking blue waters, a touch choppy from rising and cooling winds. Rather than sit in the car I stood on the bow of the ferry, peering out at the approach of Salt Spring, looking for the first visual of mister Ayte. I had no idea what he would be driving, but imagined him as either a panel van or a motorcycle guy.

Neither. It was impossible to miss him at the Vesuvius Bay ferry terminal, leaning against a shiny black Buick LeSabre from the era when cars had leg and headroom, tank-like skeletons and serious gas thirst. Of course a big dude like that is going to have a big dude's ride, right? He spotted me immediately and waved a casual hand as the winds tossed his hair ropes around. I could see a smile, and it warmed away my stomach's returning doubt chills. Into the Toyota, out onto the parking area at the terminal, and we greeted each other with smiles. "Wicked cool that you could make it, Fred" he was extra tall by then, wearing a thick heeled pair of hiking boots and faded knee-torn jeans, and the de rigueur fleece over-shirt required by oceana Pacifica. I felt like a midget next to him, but his manner was warm and off-hand in a way that relaxed me. This was no alpha male playing jerk, and besides, he was just weird enough looking to straddle the ineffable border between sex god and outright geek. I liked that about Ayte, truth be told.

"There is one item of potential weirdness that I must mention right away" he said matter-of-factly, causing the gut knots to tighten a little. "I think it's best if you leave your car here and I drive you to my place, okay?" I started to protest and he continued - "The others weren't too keen on my inviting you over without asking them first, but it's my space and I have final say... it's just that, there's one other thing; when we get out on Upper Ganges road I need to blindfold you - "

"Say, what?"

"Dude" (the word issued forth with more ease than his earlier use) "It's for your own good, man. Let's just say I have a little indoor farming operation going on there, and it doesn't make much sense for us to have you know where the place is or how to get there." I rolled that over for a few moments, feeling stung small and stupid at first but admitting the logic. His eyes seemed genuinely sorry. "I don't drink either, bro" he went on. "You'll get back here no problem for the last ferry, or you can even crash overnight. We have lots of space." Here's the thing; ever since Cynthia fucked me and then fucked me over for mister Seattle, I'd been as tightly wound as it gets. Drinking, smoking way too much herbals, and frittering away inheritance money that was marked by the extra weight of tragedy. My parents had both perished in a float plane accident up-island, only two years prior to my meeting... her. The only sibling, elder sister Patty who disapproved of basically everything Fred, received the house and its five acres in the heart of Sooke. Me, a fifty thousand dollar cushion that would soon resemble one of the ones on my heater-burned sofa. Ayte looked down at me in Fred's little turmoil, and then I mellowed out and accepted his terms. "You rock, bro" he told me in his quick intimacy manner. "When we get a few miles up the road, I'll pull over and have you sit in back, and you can wear this..." he yanked a dark blue bandana from his back pocket, already prepared for my agreeing. It was decorated with dozens of tiny Stropharia Cubensis mushrooms, indigenous to the region and gateways of allure that I had previously attempted and failed at. (stomach ache city, too)

"I meant to mention earlier" Ayte beamed, and I knew what was coming - "did you bring your guitar along?" I told him it was always with me, and he smacked me on the shoulder gleefully. "Grab it and let's go. You are going to have your mind fully blown open, and I already told the bandmates about your beautiful song." I beamed a beam of my own and we were moments later underway. I had forgotten just how roomy the old Buicks could be, and with a comparative giant beside me I felt smaller than ever. We pulled out into the relatively quiet traffic flow and hadn't travelled a hundred yards before Ayte said - "So, she was worth it, no doubt." I didn't understand him at all, and asked what he meant. "Your song. Your beautiful new piece of music that you played. Whoever inspired that in you was definitely worth whatever the cost was... right?"

"How did you know that was a new song, though?" I asked him, replaying our earlier meeting and reasonably sure I hadn't told him. Ayte laughed and squinted at me with an appraising almost annoying glint in his eyes. "Fred... it was filled with that new song vibe... a lot of raw heart, and it still needed a middle section unless you're a verse chorus only kind of writer." I began to formulate an answer that just might make mention of the departed Cynthia and the blast crater where my heart had been, but Ayte continued - "It would be really cool if you wrote in a major chord, positive sounding bridge, as if you were regaining strength and optimism, and then had it drop right back down into that deep sad final third."

My only response arrived in time with a sinking feeling in my chest that was momentary but punishing. "Her name is Cynthia" I admitted, looking out the side window at passing countryside and a rising slope jammed with Spruce trees. "I guess you could say she was my first and only love, but she dumped me for someone else not long ago." Ayte nodded gently, then chewed his bottom lip and stared through the windshield tint at a mostly empty two-lane road. "Her name was Cynthia" he said firmly. "Now she's just another sad song." I remember being both grateful for his sudden arrival in that day, and a fleeting need to punch him in the face as hard as I could. Not that he was being flippant, mind you, but because I had instantly opened my chest cavity to a virtual stranger. The deep wounds that won't heal, but rather form lesson scars and chords for weeping guitars.

"I shouldn't talk, though" Ayte continued (and I wasn't sure if he was being sincere or throwing me a pacifier) "because I have never been in love." It surprised me. Made me stare at his profile for a moment, and perhaps the reader has guessed at what the narrative threads have been knitting, but I stared and calmed down. Even one crack at that holy grail of the heart space, big Love, was not guaranteed for each of us born from that reservoir and expressly designed to seek its maddening elusive answers. "Tantalizing" I spoke out loud, not intending to have the thought escape as such. Ayte let it slide. We rode in silence for five minutes, both watching the beautiful blues and greens of the island, and then he slowed to pull over. It was blindfold and back seat time.

I surprised myself by going for such a ludicrous ride. For accepting the odd terms and for talking the whole time about how Cynthia and I had met (me playing a sad mellow piece outdoors near Thetis lake that drew her over for a listen) ... Ayte responded through my sentences with scattered "uh huh", "mmhmm" sounds. I spoke openly and realized how much I had needed to purge to a new person, a new set of ears not tired of the repeating theme of Cynthia leaves Fred. During this blindfolded backseat "oratorio", I also attempted to focus on distance and sounds beneath the roomy LeSabre, since I knew the island fairly well and was very curious about where we were heading.

What I was able to glean, as my bitter sounding tale concluded, revolved around a left hand turn and the sound and feel of gravel under tires. "We're there?" I asked, and Ayte replied with a terse "almost." It took at least another minute, at slower speed and over steady small dips and bounces, to come to a stop. My new musician acquaintance turned to speak at the back seat, because I could smell his very odd breath which was almost medicinal. A funky blend of rich dense hashish and Scope, maybe. "Alright, buddy. I know this is fucked up and all, but I'm going to lead you into the place before that blindfold comes off. Yeah?" What else was there to do but to nod and go along with the "house rules"? Frankly, at that point I didn't want to see a grow-op or a specific location.

Ayte opened the passenger door on the driver's side and I heard him grab my guitar gig bag, with "I'll carry this in for you". Then, the door closing, his footfalls around the back of the Buick, and another door opening. Cool fingers on my right wrist, a light grip and then release so that I could step free into cooling air. It was strangely quiet out there for a moment, and I suppose I expected to hear the sounds of his band tuning or, warming up. He let me rise tall to my full towering standing height of minus-midget (compared to he) and then those long cool fingers closed around my right wrist again and he said "over this way, Fred" with a gentle pull. I walked and wondered what the hell I had gotten into, but not enough to call it off. I must admit it was the first spark of real life I had felt inside me since the love evisceration crisis. I was silently anticipating an experience with possibly the coolest, deadliest unknown band in the country; little old me privy to a kick ass sneak preview of something that would break and break large. Yes, Ayte's thumbnail scrape and harmonic pluck had impressed me that much.

He opened what seemed like two locks. The door was soundless on its hinges. "Two steps up, bro" he said with another gentle wrist tug, and up I went into a space that felt a few degrees warmer than the rapidly cooling evening. My feet sounded on creaky floorboards and we walked maybe twenty feet straight ahead, then stopped, and I heard another doorknob being turned. There, immediately after a few halting steps into what felt to be a much larger space, the pungent whack of west coast smoke. Right upside the nostrils. Heady and dense. I heard an amplifier buzzing and could make out the sounds of distant male voices from what was surely another room behind yet another closed door.

"A beer for you?" Ayte asked as his hand removed itself from my wrist. I heard the ruffle of my guitar bag as he removed the shoulder strap and set it down somewhere near us. "Can I take this off now?", my hands pointed index fingers toward the bandana. "Yeah, and... a beer for you?" I tugged the knot behind my head up and away whilst answering "I'd love a beer", and my vision found a large crazy wall across the room as Ayte pivoted on his boot heels to leave for the doorway that contained those other voices. "Be right back, dude" he spoke over a shoulder. "Make yourself at home. Read the lyric wall."

And.

Holy.

Shit.

The lyric wall. The crazy wall. It ran for thirty feet, from floor to eight foot ceiling, and the old recreation room wood panel had been primed and painted an off-white. Every square inch of its surface was emblazoned in felt marker language and bizarre drawings. My eyes adjusted and didn't know where to lock focus, but immediately I was thrown off balance by confusion. I didn't recognize the words, letters, even the meaning of most of the visuals. It was a hybrid of bizarre Egyptian hieroglyph and Chinese-like script with a flourish of widely scattered comic book style drawings; all of this was small and packed densely across the wall. I exhaled a tremulous "wow". Beneath my feet a stupendously ornate and intricately woven oriental carpet had me instantly in mind of Clive Barker's "Weaveworld" as well as a great Henry Rollins concert I had once upon a time drunkenly attended. (he and the band were set up on a beautiful rug, Henry full of angsty testosterone menace, ink, bare feet, perspiration) The carpet was just as strange as the wall. It looked barely recognizable as something my brain could latch onto safely. As I stared down into its subtle tea-stained twenty by twelve area, it seemed that my feet sank just slightly into its very low pile.

My wide open eyes took in the two side walls which were left in their ugly wood panel original state, and then I managed a one eighty pivot to become even more freaked out. Have you ever been visually overwhelmed all at once? Not known where to focus and react due to the ultimate combination of mind-blow components? I scanned across three distinct "stations" where the band's "instruments" were set up; my stare dialled back to the "drum kit"... this was a hybridized amassment of traditional Paiste cymbals, hi-hats, with partial sections of the usual drum kit hardware, but

but

the hardware was inserted deep into a thick twisting bleached length of what looked to be ancient driftwood. Along its bottom curve near the floor, smaller sections of metal tubing had been inserted and bolted into place, from which four different colored Converse All-Star shoes connected as de facto stabilizers. I wanted to burst into laughter but it was instantly confusing and frightening. Where there would normally be "rack toms", three sea turtle shells of varying sizes were positioned at identical striking angles. Held in place by more strange dull metallic tubing that protruded up from the driftwood trunk. There were washers, nuts and bolts. Each shell had a skin drawn across the open bowl side, fastened all around with small tribal looking bones that were somewhat flattened on top. No floor tom. I was too stunned in the first shock moments to check for a kick drum or pedal, but instantly knew that the wide chunk of gnarly driftwood served in that capacity. I was thinking you talk about your hippies...

and it dawned on me that the other room's voices had entirely muted, as though they wanted me to be utterly alone in the freaked out processing of what I was looking at. There were two "amplifiers" that flanked the bizarre organic-slash-traditional drum set. Of identical dimensions, they were square and a flat black with no visible buttons or input jacks. The material in front resembled that which can be found on Marshall cabinets; a thick cross-hatched cloth that was seamlessly flush with the rest of the container. I stepped toward the nearest waist-high "amp" and saw no power source but could hear its steady buzzing from within. With a trembling hand I dared to touch its upper surface. Cold, dull, but resembling or seeming to be made from a form of obsidian material. I had a terror twitch thought that I was looking at something ancient. A sound emitting fossil device. With no visible power source or controls, I guessed that it must be some manner of... what, really? A mentally controlled amplification system? Across from the hybrid driftwood percussion kit, ludicrous with its array of handcrafted Paiste products, the other humming black box stood in waiting. I felt frozen in place but moved my attention back to the tangled madness of the lyric wall. An anxious anticipation bubbled in my lower stomach and before I could focus anew on the strange hieroglyphic jumble, that other room's door opened quickly on a squeaky hinge.

Ayte was first through the doorway, then two equally tall and thinly built males who were wearing fucking goalie masks. I'd seen bands wear masks on stage before, but this was a rehearsal. Ayte was bare faced and unbelievably at first I didn't look directly at what he was carrying because I was drawn to the others. You may recall my description of the dark blue blindfold bandana with its tiny magic mushroom motif? Ditto the ludicrous masks. Dark blue verging on black, with brilliant amber 'shrooms equally and densely arranged. A part of my mind said okay, they're rehearsing a debut show for me. There followed a split second of relaxing into the possibility, but then I looked at the two instruments being carried and quickly at one of the humming featureless amplifier boxes.

Two identical jet black ultra glossy tubes of approximately traditional electric guitar length. A circumference of perhaps a large man's forearm at its widest. Ayte's instrument was completely encircled on its shining surface by at least twenty "strings" of various diameter that went from thick piano density to nearly invisible, but the thing of it was

oh, the memory of it hitting me fresh

These "lines" ran the length of the tube from where they vanished into holes in a flat base (envision an unopened soup can lid), up to an impossible braid that formed a cone on the upper end. The tuning end, I supposed. These fucking "strings" were actually beams of indescribably gorgeous laser-like light. They were solid beams in an array of in-between tones that I had never before seen. Like a mushroom version of advanced-cosmos color wheel photon strands. A furtive stunned glance at the other tube-carrying mask-wearing musician revealed that he had less of these beams on his instrument, and they were generally thicker but no less vivid. I thought through a melting mind - guitar and bass?

"This is Fred" announced Ayte as he walked across the ornate rug with an outstretched free hand that held a beer bottle. I was oddly relieved to see a local brand that I recognized, and accepted the ice cold offering with a failing voice but a no-doubt electrocuted expression. The two goalie masks nodded silently as Ayte's equally tall brothers-in-sound took their positions. I neglected to mention a normal everyday drum stool because in my shock at trying to identify the driftwood creation's makeup, I hadn't noticed it. Drummer took his seat and I saw two of the usual sticks in his hands. Pale skin, long thin fingers. He was dressed head to toe in a dark blue robe that had me in mind of Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" orgy scene. Equally silent but for the mask nodding, the "bassist" took position in front his sound box device and cradled the light beam tube in his arms like a baby. His robe was a Buckingham green.

"Wow. I don't even have the beginning of a clue what I'm looking at" - my voice had returned in a cracked timbre. Ayte moved in front of me with a short staccato chuckle, and said "excuse me bro" as I stepped back and away so he could stand in front of his sound box. He too, hoisted the bizarre laser beam tube instrument up into a cradled position with his right hand supporting its bottom. I pressed on with a voice almost resembling mine - "What are those things?" The goalie masked "bassist" shot a coldly appraising dark pupil duo at me through his eye holes. "Do you think he is prepared?" the guy asked with a head swivel toward Ayte. His voice was deep, too, with precisely enunciated vowels and a crisp 's'. Ayte nodded at his bandmate and said "Hey bro Fred, why don't you make yourself comfortable somewhere, but stand back a few feet." I looked to see no places to sit other than floor, but nodded silently and carried my beer over to the lyric wall. My eyes searched its craziness for something I could make sense of as I paced across carpet and then floorboards. Questions by the flood were coming to me. I was tripping, for sure. "What language is this?" I couldn't help but to ask, and turned to look at the strange trio as I slid down to squat with my back against the cartoon and hieroglyph mash-up.

The lanky drummer took his throne and spoke in an almost identical baritone to match his bass player's : "There is no equivalent here for that which you name as language", and as my blowing mind began to mull his crux, he took sticks to hi-hats and shut me up forever in a time bottle. Immediately reminiscent of the sizzling groove of the hats in Steve Miller's "Swingtown", but a few beats per minute slower, and with a skanky jazzified slink. I was fucking mesmerized to the Nth, then and there. Space and the lack of reality in that room conspired with his stick work as those hi-hats were impacted and accented by open/close deftness. He had a loose and very relaxed posture. I was astounded when he injected a skipping funky kick pattern through that driftwood relic. (I hadn't noticed the kick pedal at all) A warm resounding richness in the thumping tree trunk filled the room's every cubic inch, and he worked an impossible skipping thudding nuanced wood-rich bottom motif into those weaving sizzling hats. I was more fucked than Cynthia had ever fucked me.

Ayte and the nameless other stood in mannequin repose, both sets of eyes on me as I squatted against the mystery wall. I began to wonder if the blindfold had been treated with some exotic unknown form of hallucinogen. This was way out there. Beyond beyond's beyond out there. I fell into that strutting kick and hi-hat pattern and waited for what I knew was coming. There was no traditional snare drum on that "kit", but I felt the placement of what was about to be added to this spinal manifesto. Call it the born musician and quick ear in me. Just at the very moment where I would have added it, the "snare" crack of beautiful resonating driftwood fell right into the sweet pocket. Smack dab organic perfection. How was he able to execute such a steady tone from hitting ages old dead wood? How the hell was he doing that incredible stutter accent on every fourth stroke? His hands were fluid ghost note appendages. Ayte, who I had to steal a glance at, was smiling from ear to ear at me. I didn't realize it then, but I had performed a stunned open-mouthed slow slide down the wall and was then sitting with my ass on the floor, legs splayed straight out. The beer was white-knuckled between both hands.

I was going to say the common "oh my god" just when the other goalie-masked mushroom person hoisted his tube and intersected two beautiful orange light beams with the first two fingers of his left hand. My stillborn utterance died happily beneath a v-shaped fingering that suddenly filled the drum groove with a subsonic note unlike any I had ever experienced. It shook my entrails but wasn't necessarily loud. He moved the v of his fingers deeper into the laser beam strings, toward the bottom of that tubular miracle. I heard within the felt bass tones a pulsing melodic layer of almost orchestral ancient-feeling sounds. It was the molten rock of Sooke river banks tumbling and instantly cooling. It was the entire unabridged encyclopedia of Orca whale pod knowledge. I managed to lift the beer to my lips for a desperate swig, being forcefully penetrated by this grooving ineffable rhythm section magic trick. Another type of virginity was removed by a spinning planet and the tick tock of how we identify its spin. I mean, deflowered deluxe. Event horizon met.

Ayte's turn was coming. I realized it and all of my attention went to his zone of being. The carpet beneath The Inklings was also a carpet of unfolding skronk and marrow melt, all set up sweetly for Ayte's chops, about to chop me into Fred minced. Do you think that my newfound oddball friend cut loose with a mother-of-all-humbling cascade of impossible lead lines? Do you think he put Einstein and Hendrix in a galactic blender? Ayte bent his face over the myriad new-colors of his instrument's photon strings, still grinning at my reaction, and fluidly unleashed a barrage of in-pocket rhythm playing that was more UN than OF. I mean, not the sound of guitar strings at all. Not the inflection of floating keyboard quavers. Not nearly but yes nearly a reed instrument. It was a fucking flavor. He played it with one hand tapping across the various string beams, moving along the tube's length, in a way that was Chapman Stick-like. I thought of King Crimson being produced by Satan in a studio once financed by God.The tapping tempo funky clean impossible to identify notes were perfectly placed within the magie sonique. Something at once cello and sexy overdriven Stratocaster happened from beneath and within his hands. I next attempted to regain my feet and couldn't. The beer bottle slipped from its clenched holding place to spill across my thigh. I made no move to stop its flow. Wet. Dream.

Ayte began to gyrate a little. His crazy dreads fell into and around the glowing music tube as he brought forth the end of my previous reality. He gave the tube a little rotation and restarted by sliding an entire palm across and down into the beam-strings. All of the myriad colors intensified and I watched him gather up a half dozen of the strands for a fist clenching sound meld. No apt words to describe the symphonic emotional impact of that technique. It was a flavor, a memory, and a teaching. The drumming-math and bass-paint shaping followed suit. Everything in that strange room, besides me, coalesced into a unity that shattered each baby step of my own traditional music learning curve. That drummist began to attack the turtle shell toms with cocky blurring slurring accent fills that I couldn't figure out at all, yet they worked beyond the scope of compositional integrity. He kept an open hi-hat pattern alive and jumping, yet skipped and stammered the funk out of those bizarre rack-toms, all of that sounding ancient and faerie woodsian. I swear I could then smell Pacific rainforest. Drummer and bassist and Ayte; they became lost to the glory of their cosmic channel noise, more physically animated. I wanted to pee my pants and weep. Privy to more than I could have dreamt, stoned or sober.

Finally I regained a modicum of motor function. My knees obeyed a distant brain instruction and I awkwardly gathered myself up and pushed clumsily along the lyric wall until stumble standing. Roomshake wood note star powder was alive all around me. I looked at the music makers in their triplet identity jamming and suddenly felt a new heightened buzzing inside me. Ayte seemed to perceive it telepathically and his eyes found mine. His stare was of joyous hedonistic abandon, with his dreads on the soar, and he exhorted me with that gaze. A look passed between The Inklings that I caught just barely before time and place disintegrated into my nearly out-of-self trance shuffle. I moved to my guitar case, one thigh beer soaked, on the verge of tears and rebirth. What I remember next is that I had the trusty Yamaha and its frayed strap hanging from me. Ayte began to play a quieter steady note that resembled the minor A of my newest song, then nodded toward the magic carpet beneath his big boots. I obeyed and don't recall walking to where he was playing, but yet I have a crystalline memory of how the sound in the room seemed so perfectly uniform and balanced. The volume blend didn't at all diminish or increase according to the conventional rules of physics. Proximity to the driftwood drum kit or the laser light music tubes meant nothing to the room-filling volumes. I stood in front of Ayte. He eye-locked me and mouthed the count : "one-two-three" that segued as though practiced into all four of us playing and interpreting my newest piece.

I didn't think. I knew. So did they. It touched upon my fondest moments of being on stage with a team. A unit of sound delivery and same page intent. That is the magical shit when it happens right. What took place for four high-heavenly minutes with The Inklings reached for new earthly descriptives. To pluck, strum, and emote my way unconsciously through that piece of music, and to hear for the very first time (ever, anywhere) such an accompaniment... wood-rich notes and humanistic Paiste cymbals played along with me. The bass melody was something I could never have written; a serpentine sensual lovemaking yearning underpin. Ayte? He stepped back and did exactly what he had done earlier to my Yamaha. He plucked a brilliant yellow beam of light and let it sing like a quasar choir, sing somehow in a delectable A minor.

When it finished, and it finished with a unison ringing chord that could only have been telepathic and worm-holed, I was a crying shaking mess. I shook my head and let the Yamaha hang slack at my stomach, only then wondering at what technological marvel had the guitar been amplified into their mix... and the drummer said very gently to me : "welcome home, brother."

He said it, and it coincided with two things. I remembered him the way we might sometimes remember a kid from grade school, like an old friend taken away by Life and folded into the mental pastiche of all of those names and faces on the cusp of memory loss. Was there some fear when he spoke that to me, then Ayte and the other guy nodded enthusiastically? Yes, only natural, yes? The second thing was a sudden intense itching burn deep inside the meat of my strumming hand's palm. I looked down in confusion and they all laughed softly. Gentle buzzing could be heard from the idling sound boxes. The room was liberally fragranced at that point with earthy tree trunk bouquet. I looked down at the star-shaped puncture scar in my palm from when I had apparently fallen from my bicycle at a young age beyond this memory's visuals. It was red and inflamed. Just then at the point of awareness in a blossom, Ayte placed his sound tube carefully on the floor and approached me with both hands extended.

He took my shoulders, very gently and with softening eyes, to spin me around so that I was facing the lyric wall. Then he pushed just as gently but with a no-give firmness, and we walked to the wall slowly. I saw it there in a stylized comic bookish black marker square border, but its details rendered in muted colors that looked quite old. It was positioned right where my back had been only five minutes before; how had I missed it? Perhaps, in the hindsight-retrospect twinning, the artwork had birthed itself during the playing of my still incomplete new song. Ayte and I stopped before the drawing, a few feet from its mind-frying meaning. "Are you ready to write the bridge now, my brother?"

(I took it as right the bridge, and then write)

Choreographed in absurdist but appropriate fashion, the other two voices repeated with "Are you ready to write the bridge now, our brother?" My eyes went deep into the drawing of four of us, where I had obtained their height and the other two were unmasked. We were together on a circular stage within the open edged lip of a classic flying saucer, giving a performance to an unseen audience; perhaps the artist. When upon turning I saw the other two had removed their masks and bore striking facial resemblances to Ayte, I was not as shocked as you might expect. They were bald, pale, with nearly identical features. When the mad throb and itch in my palm drew my attention and I saw something tiny and with pulsation just beneath the skin, I wasn't as shocked as you might expect. An implant. A memory. A timing. I stared at it and Fred began to become Fred no more. That strange moving and sinking sensation earlier, within the ornate oriental rug, began to shimmer shiver into my legs, and when I turned to stare at Ayte and met him there eye-level, I wasn't as shocked as you might expect.

The new I. The new I looked once more at my hand and watched the self-propelled implant with its tiny convex seed shape as it pushed its way out of epidermis. This is what proper music can channel, came the thought. (along with the first of countless notions to break into raucous dancing and singing abandon) I looked back into my brother's eyes and we shared our second handshake. A firm pressing of palms and a transition and return of the tiny alien sliver that had been with me for thirty earth years. With me, one of the chosen few. The selected infiltrator vessels. Sent by authorities I would soon know of and also strangely remember in a way that vacuumed time and history, clean.

You want epiphany? How about Aha - these are the true composers and it is from their channel that the humans dip and borrow, not knowing, calling what results as their own.

"I am ready to write the bridge" I told Ayte, (in my head I spelled it "right") and that is the story of how Fred passed his ultimate audition. Stay tuned for our debut performance, coming soon to a night sky near you.

#fiction surrealism

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bixpicks · 5 years

Text

Bix Picks 2018

20. Melody's Echo Chamber - Bon Voyage (Fat Possum)

French psych-rock/dream-pop Sung mostly in English, backed By Swedish players

19. Stuart A. Staples - Arrhythmia (City Slang)

Hypnotic mood piece Understated to a fault A quiet disco

18. Thee Oh Sees - Smote Reverser (Castle Face)

Two drums, axe, bass, keys Amps turned up to eleven Prog rockin' POWER!

17. The Green Child - The Green Child (Upset the Rhythm)

Dystopian pop That could soundtrack a scene in Tron: The High School Years

16. Armand Hammer - Paraffin (Backwoodz Studioz)

Gritty beats and tight, Street-level rhymes invoke the Classic Def Jux sound

15. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - Hope Downs (Sub Pop)

Efficient jam band? Or meandering pop rock? Kinda works both ways 🤔

14. Vince Staples - FM! (Def Jam)

Back to his old tricks Less electro than Big Fish... And better for it

13. Parquet Courts - Wide Awake! (Rough Trade)

A funky winner From anxious New York rockers And fuck Tom Brady!

12. Beak> - >>> (Temporary Residence)

Clean tones subverted By an off-kilter wooze and Vocals from a well

11. Gruff Rhys - Babelsberg (Rough Trade)

Widescreen arrangements On par with pop's golden age And songcraft to match

10. Gwenno - Le Kov (Heavenly)

Lush, sonic dreamscapes Sung in her native Cornish... Not that you'll notice

9. The Good, the Bad & the Queen - Merrie Land (Studio 13)

A haunted fairground Of England's past, present...and Possible future?

8. Gaz Coombes - World's Strongest Man (Caroline)

Ex-Supergrass head's Wry take on midlife concerns And functional angst

7. Jeff Tweedy - WARM (dBpm)

A raw, unflinching Look within, without and at A life lost and found

6. DRINKS - Hippo Lite (Drag City)

Post-punk kooks wield a Strange idioglossia To wondrous results

5. Colter Wall - Songs of the Plains (Young Mary's)

The new old Country Just not the country you'd think "Country" would come from

4. Pusha T - Daytona (G.O.O.D. Music/Def Jam)

With Ye back choppin' King Push spits his fiercest rhymes In a decade. YECHHHH!!!!

3. Spiritualized - And Nothing Hurt (Fat Possum)

In which the Spaceman Bequeaths upon us once more A space rock opus

2. Ty Segall - Freedom's Goblin (Drag City)

A sprawling double Top notch quality control And horns never hurt

1. Earl Sweatshirt - Some Rap Songs (Tan Cressida/Columbia)

Earl works through some shit Maybe not for everyone Maybe that's the point

HONORABLE MENTION (in alphabetical order)

Arctic Monkeys - Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino (Domino) Daniel Blumberg - Minus (Mute) Jonathan Bree - Sleepwalking (Lil' Chief) Foxwarren - Foxwarren (Anti-) Hermit & the Recluse - Orpheus vs. the Sirens (Obol For Charon) Scott Hirsch - Lost Time Behind the Sun (Scissor Tail) Mark Lanegan/Duke Garwood - With Animals (Heavenly) Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks - Sparkle Hard (Matador) MGMT - Little Dark Age (Columbia) milo - budding ornithologists are weary of tired analogies (Ruby Yacht) milo/Elucid - Nostrum Grocers (Ruby Yacht) Palberta - Roach Goin' Down (Wharf Cat) Alasdair Roberts, Amble Skuse & David McGuinness - What News? (Drag City) Shopping - The Official Body (Fat Cat) Richard Swift - The Hex (Secretly Canadian) Szun Waves - New Hymns to Freedom (The Leaf Label) Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Sex & Food (Jagjaguwar) Kurt Vile - Bottle It In (Matador) Yo La Tengo - There's a Riot Going On (Matador) Thom Yorke - Suspiria: Music For the Luca Guadagnino Film (XL)

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shipinthewoods · 5 years

Photo

look.ship Presents: Our Albums of the Year, 2018

-- “Apples aaaaand oranges,” I sing to myself as I try to work out the best records of the year. Apples aaaaand Oranges as I try to rank the top 25. There was a time, not too long ago, when I thought list-making was kind of gross. An unloved expectation, or maybe a compulsion begrudgingly indulged. But that was back when picking through humankind’s creative output seemed manageable. Now that our horizons aren't blinkered, it's clear that it’s a vast, vast orchard, growing all kinds of fruit. Which kind do you pick? Now, which piece of fruit? There are millions of apples on these millions of trees, which is best? Are you sure you don’t want an orange? And remember, there will be new apples and oranges soon! The trees keep growing the stuff. So, now I like year-end lists. Even the bad ones serve a utilitarian function, but the best ones transcend usefulness--they’re deeply personal, filigreed maps directing seekers to the best trees with the best fruit. Is ours one of those lists? I don’t know. That’s not for me to say, but it is deeply personal, and as such, probably a bit idiosyncratic, though there’s some overlap with other lists here and there, I’m sure. Mostly, I just hope you enjoy it. Alright, the nuts and bolts: This year, to accommodate the incredible bounty of unbelievably good music released into the world, the list has been expanded. Permanently? Temporarily? Who knows? But we’ve got eighty AOTY slots, and fifteen each for our other categories, because it became impossible to pare them down any further. As with last year, the top 25 are ranked. As with last year, we’ve done this to give you a better idea of what dominated our editor’s home stereo. BUT REMEMBER: Though the remainder of the selections are unranked and arranged in first word / first name alphabetical order, it should be noted that these are not runners up or honorable mentions or somehow lesser than. These eighty records are the best albums of the year. As with last year, and most years to be completely honest, the album that went on to claim our top spot was an obvious choice from the moment of its release. This year Virginia Wing continued their unbroken streak of stellar, affecting, life-affirming recordings. With Ecstatic Arrow Alice Merida Richards and Sam Pillay rewired their outre-pop into something new and fresh and hopeful. Theirs is a record that improbably finds strength in acknowledging the smothering expectations, oppression, and systemic injustice that plague our society. It leaves the listener feeling as though we might someday build something better, as though there’s a chance, however infinitesimal, that all is not yet lost. --

Our Albums of the Year, 2018: Top 25

-- 1. Virginia Wing, Ecstatic Arrow (Fire)

Ecstatic Arrow by Virginia Wing

-- 2. Hiro Kone, Pure Expenditure (Dais)

Pure Expenditure by Hiro Kone

-- 3. The Body, I Have Fought Against It, But I Can’t Any Longer. (Thrill Jockey)

I Have Fought Against It, But I Can’t Any Longer. by the body

-- 4. Sauna Youth, Deaths (Upset The Rhythm)

Deaths by Sauna Youth

-- 5. Dale Cornish, Temporal (Vanity Publishing)

Temporal by Dale Cornish

-- 6. Demdike Stare, Passion (Modern Love)

-- 7. Yoshinori Hayashi, Ambivalence (Smalltown Supersound)

Ambivalence by Yoshinori Hayashi

-- 8. Oliver Coates, Shelley’s on Zenn-La (RVNG Intl.)

Shelley's on Zenn-La by Oliver Coates

-- 9. Gwenno, Le Kov (Heavenly)

-- 10. Jay Glass Dubs, Plegnic (Ecstatic)

-- 11. ZULI, Terminal (UIQ)

Terminal (UIQLP003) by ZULI

-- 12. Miss Red, K.O. (Pressure)

K.O. by Miss Red

-- 13. Gaika, Basic Volume (Warp)

-- 14. Robyn, Honey (Konichiwa)

-- 15. Factory Floor, A Soundtrack for a Film (H/O/D Records)

-- 16. Klaus Johann Grobe, Du Bist So Symmetrisch (Trouble In Mind)

Du bist so symmetrisch by Klaus Johann Grobe

-- 17. Exploded View, Obey (Sacred Bones)

Obey by Exploded View

-- 18. Beak>, >>> (Temporary Residence / Invada)

>>> by Beak>

-- 19. Dusted, Blackout Summer (Polyvinyl Recordings)

Blackout Summer by Dusted

-- 20. Szun Waves, New Hymn to Freedom (The Leaf Label)

New Hymn To Freedom by Szun Waves

-- 21. Moon Gangs, Earth Loop (Village Green Recordings)

Earth Loop by Moon Gangs

-- 22. Lucrecia Dalt, Anticlines (RVNG Intl.)

Anticlines by Lucrecia Dalt

-- 23. Félicia Atkinson & Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Limpid as the Solitudes (Shelter Press)

Limpid As The Solitudes by Felicia Atkinson / Jefre Cantu-Ledesma

-- 24. Drew McDowall, The Third Helix (Dais)

The Third Helix by Drew McDowall

-- 25. Richard Swift, The Hex (Secretly Canadian)

The Hex by Richard Swift

–

Our Albums of the Year, 2018: 26 - 80

– A.A.L. (Against All Logic), 2012 – 2017 (Other People)

-- Amnesia Scanner, Another Life (PAN)

Another Life by Amnesia Scanner

-- Amor, Sinking into a Miracle (Night School)

Sinking Into A Miracle by AMOR

-- Apostille, Choose Life (Upset The Rhythm)

Choose Life by Apostille

-- Bambara, Shadow on Everything (Wharf Cat)

Shadow On Everything by Bambara

-- Batuk, Kasi Royalty (Teka Records)

Batuk - Kasi Royalty by Teka Records

-- Bjørn Torske, Byen (Smalltown Supersound)

Byen by Bjørn Torske

-- Bonny Doon, Longwave (Woodsist)

Longwave by bonny doon

-- Capitol K, GOATHERDER (Faith And Industry)

GOATHERDER by Capitol K

-- Carbolizer, Carbolizer (Self-released)

Carbolizer by Carbolizer

-- Concretism, For Concrete and Country (Castles In Space)

For Concrete and Country by concretism

-- Cucina Povera, Hilja (Night School)

Hilja by Cucina Povera

-- The Cyclist, Alabaster Thrones / Beat at the Heart of the City (100% Silk)

Beat At The Heart Of The City by The Cyclist

-- The Declining Winter, Belmont Slope (Home Assembly Music)

Belmont Slope by The Declining Winter

-- Dedekind Cut, Tahoe (Kranky)

Tahoe (ded007) by Dedekind Cut

-- Dog Chocolate, Moody Balloon Baby (Upset The Rhythm)

Moody Balloon Baby by Dog Chocolate

-- East Man, Red, White & Zero (Planet Mu)

Red, White & Zero by East Man

-- Gabe Gurnsey, Physical (Phantasy)

-- Gnod, Chapel Perilous (Rocket Recordings)

Chapel Perilous by Gnod

-- Guttersnipe, My Mother the Vent (Upset The Rhythm)

My Mother The Vent by Guttersnipe

-- Iceage, Beyondless (Matador)

youtube

-- Jlin, Autobiography (Planet Mu)

Autobiography (Music from Wayne McGregor's Autobiography) by Jlin

-- JPEGMAFIA, Veteran (Deathbomb Arc)

Veteran by JPEGMAFIA

-- Landing, Bells in New Towns (El Paraiso Records)

Bells In New Towns by Landing

-- Lay Llamas, Thuban (Rocket Recordings)

Thuban by Lay Llamas

-- Leslie Winer & Jay Glass Dubs, YMFEES (Bokeh Versions)

YMFEES by Leslie Winer and Jay Glass Dubs

-- Mamuthones, Fear on the Corner (Rocket Recordings)

Fear On The Corner by Mamuthones

-- Mark Pritchard, The Four Worlds (Warp)

youtube

-- Matt Karmil, Will (Smalltown Supersound)

Will by Matt Karmil

-- MIKE, renaissance man (Lex)

renaissance man by MIKE

-- Mike Donovan, How to Get Your Record Played in Shops (Drag City)

How To Get Your Record Played In Shops by Mike Donovan

-- Neneh Cherry, Broken Politics (Smalltown Supersound)

Broken Politics by Neneh Cherry

-- No Age, Snares Like a Haircut (Drag City)

Snares Like A Haircut by No Age

-- Nonpareils, Scented Pictures (Mute)

youtube

-- Oneida, Romance (Joyful Noise)

Romance by Oneida

-- Parquet Courts, Wide Awake! (Rough Trade)

youtube

-- Precipitation, Earth / Sky (100% Silk)

Earth / Sky by Precipitation

-- Rabit, Life After Death (Halcyon Veil)

LIFE AFTER DEATH by Rabit

-- Rafael Anton Irisarri, Midnight Colours (Geographic North)

Midnight Colours by Rafael Anton Irisarri

-- Rattle, Sequence (Upset The Rhythm)

-- Rays, You Can Get There from Here (Trouble In Mind)

You Can Get There From Here by RAYS

-- Sealings, SCUM / THE SOUND OF MUSIC (Gob Nation)

"SCUM / THE SOUND OF MUSIC" by Sealings

-- Serengeti, Dennis 6e (Self-released)

Dennis 6e by serengetiraps

-- The Shifters, Have a Cunning Plan (Trouble In Mind)

Have A Cunning Plan by The Shifters

-- Shinichi Atobe, Heat (DDS)

-- Taken By Trees, Yellow to Blue (Self-released)

YELLOW TO BLUE by Taken By Trees

-- Tense Men, Ideal Meals (Self-released)

Ideal Meals by Tense Men

-- Terry, I’m Terry (Upset The Rhythm)

I'm Terry by Terry

-- Tirzah, Devotion (Domino)

youtube

-- TWINS, That Which Is Not Said (2MR)

That Which Is Not Said by TWINS

-- Uniform, The Long Walk (Sacred Bones)

The Long Walk by Uniform

-- Vital Idles, Left Hand (Upset The Rhythm)

Left Hand by Vital Idles

-- Wetware, Automatic Drawing (Dais)

Automatic Drawing by Wetware

-- Will Long, Long Trax 2 (Smalltown Supersound)

Long Trax 2 by Will Long

-- Yves Tumor, Safe in the Hands of Love (Warp)

youtube

–

Our Top 15 EPs & 12″s of 2018

– 1. Drew McDowall & Hiro Kone, The Ghost of Georges Bataille (BANK Records NYC)

The Ghost of Georges Bataille by Drew McDowall & Hiro Kone

-- 2. 700 Bliss, Spa 700 (Halcyon Veil)

Spa 700 by 700 Bliss

-- 3. Prostitutes, Aluminum Garage (Night School Records)

Aluminum Garage by Prostitutes

-- 4. Nathan Fake, Sunder (Ninja Tune)

Sunder by Nathan Fake

-- 5. Night Cleaner, Even (Geographic North)

Even by Night Cleaner

-- 6. G36, Floor Weapons Vol. 1 (Pressure)

Floor Weapons Vol.1 by G36

-- 7. Nick Malkin, Slow Day on Brilliant Drive (Geographic North)

Slow Day on Brilliant Drive by Nick Malkin

-- 8. Slikback, Lasakaneku (Hakuna Kulala)

Lasakaneku by Slikback

-- 9. MIKE, Black Soap (LEX)

Black Soap by MIKE

-- 10. HONTOS, Subway Series 1 (BANK Records NYC)

HONTOS - Subway Series Vol.1 by BANK Records NYC

-- 11. Pablo R. Ruiz, Bad Hombre (Portage Garage Sounds)

Bad Hombre by Pablo R. Ruiz

-- 12. Félicia Atkinson, Coyotes (Geographic North)

Coyotes by Félicia Atkinson

-- 13. Snapped Ankles, Violations (The Leaf Label)

Violations by Snapped Ankles

-- 14. Arrbutus, Helping Hand (Honest Electronics)

Helping Hand (HE08) by Arrbutus

-- 15. Young Guv, 2 Sad 2 Funk (Night School Records)

2 Sad 2 Funk by Young Guv

–

Our Top 15 Live Records, Reissues, Mixes, & Comps of 2018

– 1. Prins Thomas, Smalltown Supersound 25: The Movement of the Free Spirit (Smalltown Supersound)

Smalltown Supersound 25: The Movement Of The Free Spirit by Prins Thomas

-- 1. The Bug, London Zoo (Ninja Tune)

London Zoo by The Bug

-- 3. Sly & The Family Drone, Live at Café Oto (Self-Released)

Live at Cafe Oto by Sly & The Family Drone

-- 4. Beatrice Dillon, RVNG Intl. at 15: Beatrice Dillon Selects / Dissects (RVNG Intl.) Click to listen via RVNG Intl. -- 5. Demdike Stare, Stitch by Stitch (DDS)

-- 6. Various, Mutual Ground II (Honest Electronics)

Mutual Ground II (HE09) by Honest Electronics

-- 7. Duppy Gun Productions, Miro Tape (Bokeh Versions)

Miro Tape by Duppy Gun Productions

-- 8. Rabit, CRY ALONE DIE ALONE / BRICKS IN A DROUGHT (Halcyon Veil)

CRY ALONE DIE ALONE by Rabit

-- 9. Still, I (Remixed) (PAN)

I (Remixed) by STILL

-- 10. Various, Physically Sick 2 (Allergy Season / Discwoman)

Physically Sick 2 by Physically Sick 2

-- 11. Country Florist, Remote Connection / Landfall (Drawing Room Records)

Remote Connection by Country Florist

-- 12. Cindy Lee, Act of Tenderness (W.25TH)

Act Of Tenderness by Cindy Lee

-- 13. Great Ytene, Live (Self-released)

Live by Great Ytene

-- 14. Mark Peters, Innerland (Large Scale Version) (Sonic Cathedral)

Innerland (Large Scale Version) by Mark Peters

-- 15. Various, Don’t Look Now: Aural Apparitions from the Geographic North (Geographic North)

Don't Look Now: Aural Apparitions from the Geographic North by Geographic North

-- Our end-of-the-year content will continue throughout the holiday season with a series of mixes showcasing all the fabulous records listed above. Be on the lookout for the first installment in about a week. – Bernie Brooks is the editor-in-chief and bloggist of look.ship. *Everything* he writes or compiles or otherwise makes–or has *ever* written, compiled, or otherwise made–for A Ship In The Woods is editorial content, and as such reflects his opinion alone, not necessarily that of Ship as an organization. Actually, this applies to all the content on look.shipinthewoods.com, regardless of who wrote or said it. He can be e-mailed: bernie [at] shipinthewoods [dot] com – Image by Bernie Brooks.

#albums of the year #albums of the year 2018 #AOTY #AOTY 2018 #Best of #Best of 2018 #Bernie Brooks #A Ship In The Woods

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dawningasalenna · 7 years

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Having more days left for spring break, Tainan would be the perfect city to stay in for the rest of the days I have left without classes. There’s so much more left to see. Finally, I crossed out my other plans.

Anping District (04/06)

As a new day started, I woke up with the sun shining brightly. It was another perfect day for a bike ride. As Dennis recommended, I should head off to Anping District to see the treehouses. I immediately looked it up online and saw that the area is surrounded with a lot of attractions. I swiftly got out of bed, grabbed breakfast, and hopped on a bike.

Using Maps.Me for bike rides, I journeyed through the city for a 9KM cycle. It was not as fascinating as expected it to be since there were just plain buildings that looked the same. However, the dismay died down and my excitement rose upon the sight of the river. I went biking at the riverside until I reached the Zhahamuyuanzhumin Park (札哈木原住民公園). It was just across the Lin Mo-Niang Memorial Park (林默娘公園) which sat beside the scenic Fishermen’s Wharf (安亿桥下河底观景步道).

Walking past the bridge, one can easily spot the Anping Customs which is quite an interesting establishment.

Just a few steps away, the Anping Old Street is quite interesting to wander around. Filled with mini stands that sells various kinds of knickknacks, key chains, and other interesting items, the vendors stand by their booths with smiles reaching their ears.

As I’ve mentioned before, everything is close to each other. Walking was the best way to just see everything. I stumbled upon Fort Zeelandia, Zeelandia Museum, and Anping Old Fort who were side by side each other. All of these spots were touristy, but the walk and sightseeing experience throughout the fortresses was great.

Searching for more food, I found a little shop that sells fried vegetable pockets. I actually thought they were huge dumplings! They were tasty. (I had 3 of them!) Before heading further, I grabbed some shrimp rolls from a restaurant along the street near Anping Old Fort. They were so yummy! I went on for a walk to the Old Tait & Co. Merchant House since it’s where the Anping Treehouse was located. I was fascinated by how natured fused with man-made structures. It was not your typical treehouse. It took the definition of a treehouse to a whole new level. After long walks and going in and out of the museums, I eventually was tired out and napped in one of the parks.

Making my way back to West Central District, Dennis was having his Chinese Class at Cheffresh. It was great since I couldn’t pedal more to the east district, 6KM was enough. Getting enough rest, I came along to watch his basketball game with his Taiwanese teammates. Watching the game was so much fun! Goofy music, announcers, multiple courts, simultaneous games, and crazy players – it was very similar to the local basketball games in the Philippine provinces. We ended the night with a beers with the team. They actually won, unexpectedly – last-minute luck!

Chimei Museum (04/07)

FriYAY: last day of the weekday! Hearing great things about this museum, I decided to go on another 8KM bike ride. The great thing about the day was its weather. It was a bit cloudy, not too much sunshine. The guide led me to a path that was so refreshing. Rural vibe all over – bustling poultry areas, stretches of farmlands, abandoned streets, hidden forests; these were the sights that I’ve been surrounded about during biking. It made me really happy to be around nature rather than taking the highway fighting roads with scooters and cars.

After less than half an hour, I was at the Tainan Metro Park. I sat down for a while and started walking. I went up the viewing deck first to catch an overview of the whole area. It was huge: green fields, a stretch of lake, and the museum grounds were perfectly laid down on this whole space.

I first stopped at 觀景平台 which is the best spot to take a photo of the museum combined with the lake scenery. Seeing this view, I was reminded of Sun Moon Lake in Taichung. It gave off the similar aura due to its setting.

To enter the museum, I followed the signs that led to 丘比特橋 which bridged the path to the museum. Welcoming visitors is the Cherub Fountain where tourists flocked for photos.

Filled with excitement, I walked quickly to the museum’s main entrance. Upon entering this architectural fascination, I was lost for words in enchantment of how beautiful the interior is. The outside appearance was justified by its inner contents. The collection housed by the museum was definitely worth viewing. I easily spent about three hours inside by just walking and observing their displays.

As I exited the building, I was greeted by the Muse Plaza which was connected to the Olympus Bridge leading to the Apollo Fountain Plaza. Filled with the gods and goddesses we all know from Greek mythology, I sighted Athena. (Fun fact: My mom was supposed to name me Athena!) I sat beside her and took out the book entitled Everything and More by David Foster Wallace. (Check it out!)

Having the sun rise again, I went back the grass fields to look for a spot to lay down and read. Some of the visitors were having a picnic around the area. I grabbed some food from one of the stalls and the Taiwanese vendor exclaimed, “You’re Filipina!” That made my day even brighter, it was actually refreshing to be recognized as a Filipino while traveling. Finding the perfect spot, I sat down below a tree which was situated by the lake where the ducks were all hanging out. I was able to read the book peacefully while enjoying the view. I even found time to take a nap. Chimei Museum easily became my favorite in Tainan.

Once again (I never learn.), my phone battery was about to die. I asked Dennis if he could pick me up from the Tbike station at the Baoan bus stop. The bus stop was actually a nice place to just sit down and read a book at. It has an interesting tree growth on a wall, similar to the treehouse.

After a few minutes, I hopped on the motorbike! Searching for Costco, Google Maps led us to the rural road. What a refreshing ride! The cool thing about riding at the rural area of Tainan is knowing that its vicinity to the city is so near. We did some grocery shopping for the traditional dinner since it was a Friday. For Jews, it was called Shabbat. (Both Dennis and Noah are Jews.) For the first time, I witnessed a Jewish tradition which was astonishing. They sang a few songs while the candles were lit firsthand. After the tradition, we ate some of the Challah (bread) with hummus then ravioli was served for dinner. Geshmak! Bringing people together, they played a couple of songs with their ukuleles as we drank beers and wine. The night passed swiftly. Indeed, another great day in Tainan.

Chiao Tou Beach Park (04/08)

For the lovely Saturday morning, we headed for brunch after lazing around the early morning. The Artful Dodger was a nice breakfast place where they serve great food. A few minutes after we arrived, Addy and Tina came to join us. Eggs, toast, salad, bacon, coffee, tea, and even fries – everyone had a great brunch in this cozy place that has good atmosphere. Bidding goodbye, we agreed to meet at the beach in the late afternoon.

Rest up! It was a chill Saturday. After napping, we headed off to Anping Beach. It was about a 15 minute motorbike ride from the city to the beach. With only a few people walking around, we sat down to enjoy some beers with the scenery. People were relaxing through the afternoon in the ocean by kitesurfing and kiteboarding too. The beach might not have white sand, swaying palm trees, and pristine water, but it’s a nice spot to watch the sunset. It wasn’t bad at all. Dipping into the ocean, the beach was nice to swim at as well.

As the sun went down, we had dinner at a Taiwanese restaurant. Once again, I had a taste of Taiwanese food that I’ve never tried before! My favourite was specifically the shrimp with sprinkles on top. It was heavenly. Finishing off, we went back to prepare for the night. The destination: Legends Sports Bar. It was the night before Noah‘s birthday, so it was a time to celebrate! 小case – 樂團 was the band name of Dennis’ friends. This band is specifically different because they have a trombone player! It was quite interesting. As they started to play their music, the crowd gathered up near the stage to jam with them. Growing up listening to live bands, I personally enjoyed watching them and listening to their music. The vibe that they gave off influenced the crowd’s mood of having a good time. Great job!

For my last day in Tainan, we had brunch at Dennis and Noah’s place. (It was Noah‘s birthday!) Some band members of Xiao Case came over. Coffee, french toast, bacon, mushrooms and peppers, fruits – it was a nice meal. The whole noon till early afternoon was spent on chatting. Before everyone had to head to Taipei, we dropped by Mary B’s. It’s a cupcake shop owned by Dennis’ friend, Mary! She’s a really pretty woman with nice blonde hair and a great personality. Her cupcake shop was superb! As cuteness was overloading the atmosphere, there were food shaped pillows on the colourful sofa, random paintings of creative figures pinned against the wall, and the best part: bite sized cupcakes! We had coffee to wake us up and most had cupcakes. I wish I tried some, but my stomach was sickly the whole afternoon till the evening. Definitely would go visit Mary B’s again to eat a dozen or more of those cute yummy tiny cupcakes! (Check out Noah’s birthday video.)

As Sundays go, it was time to unwind. We visited a park and sat down to relax. I spotted a lot of Filipinos in the park! They were actually numerous. It was a nice afternoon. Saying our farewells, the band headed out to catch their trains going to Taipei. I decided to stay and just leave in the morning since my classes don’t start till the afternoon. Hanging out with Dennis and Noah for the rest of the night, we watched a couple episodes of Rick and Morty. A weirdly addictive show, it’s a good watch for when you want to have a good laugh while having your mind messed up. It’s absolutely hilarious. My sickly self enjoyed it a lot.

Concluding my spring break, I took a train back to Zhongli for three hours. Undoubtedly, I had a blast during my stay in this beautiful city. Immersing myself in culture, tradition, art, and music – it was a rejuvenating experience for me. It has been a long time since I acted as a “touristy traveler,” I surely liked being one for that whole week. If ever one visits Taiwan, Tainan is a city that must be on the list!

#DawningInTaiwan: Knowing Tainan Better Having more days left for spring break, Tainan would be the perfect city to stay in for the rest of the days I have left without classes.

#Asia #backpacking #Biking #College #Culture #Cycling #Food #Friends #Local #Nature #Taiwan #Travel #Traveling #Weather

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