Author: Nathaniel FitzGerald

Record #851: The Mars Volta – Amputechture (2006)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald / 1 Comment

I’ve been trying to figure out why it’s taken me so long to get into Amputechture. It was released right in the throes of my first obsession with the group: I had heard De-Loused in the Comatorium just a year earlier, and it exploded my mind. A friend had burned me a copy of Frances the Mute over the summer, and I would often leave the albums playing on repeat in my dorm room.

So why would I not immediately devour the follow-up? In my memory, I didn’t hear Amputechture until after I had moved home from Chicago in late 2009. At that time, I had bought into the hipster snob narrative that the Mars Volta was a bloated, overindulgent prog rock outfit that released two great albums. The inflated vinyl prices on the later albums didn’t give me much incentive to challenge that notion.

But the most recent batch of reissues happened to coincide with some extra playing around money, so I figured I might as well fill in the gap in my collection between Frances and Octahedron. 

And boy, am I glad I did.

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Record #850: Cremation Lily – Dreams Drenched in Static (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Album art is a funny thing. As often as the warning is given not to judge a [record] by its cover, sometimes the visual aesthetic of the record perfectly matches the sound contained therein.

Take for example Dreams Drenched in Static, the new album from Cremation Lily, the solo project of Zen Zsigo. Soft images of waves, grasses, and sand dunes are torn apart and combined to form a jagged abstract collage. It’s a stunning visual representation of the sounds on the album: gentle elements like ambient guitars, floating keyboards, clean vocals, and laid back drum machines are chopped and manipulated and pasted together to create something that is harshly overexposed and monstrous. But at the same time, beneath the hiss of white noise and squeals of feedback is a sort of zen-like peace, like the warm embrace of the snow after an avalanche.

(And if it sounds like I’m just parroting the promo email from The Flenser, that’s because they quoted me in it).

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Record #849: Harry Chapin – Greatest Stories Live (1976)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

For most people, the career of Harry Chapin begins and ends with “Cat’s in the Cradle.” Some die-hards might also bring up “Six String Orchestra,” which was immortalized in a Muppet Show sketch, but Chapin’s place in the cultural consciousness doesn’t extend much past that.

But superfan that my father was, many of my earliest musical memories are centered around the folk singer. This album in particular would often stream out of the family stereo in our old house, my sister and I running and dancing and singing along. And while “30,000 Pounds of Bananas” carries the most specific memories (alongside “The Rock” from Portrait Gallery, which I remembered being on this disc), coming to Greatest Stories Live as an adult brings an appreciation for Chapin’s effortless storytelling that makes me realize my dad might have known what he was talking about.

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Record #848: Glassing – Twin Dream (2021)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald / 1 Comment

Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine famously adheres to the theory that when a person is subjected to high volume noise for a long enough time, they enter a zen-like state. The harsh tones and oppressive volumes transform into an almost comforting embrace, like being covered in a blanket of snow after an avalanche.

Experimental Austin metallurgists Glassing are masters of this sort of alchemy, manipulating abrasive tones to create songs that are somehow staggeringly gorgeous. While I recoiled at my early, brief brushes with the band, I was encouraged to give Twin Dream a more earnest listen.

It became one of my favorite records.

Read more at ayearofvinyl.com #glassing #postmetal #doomgaze #blackmetal #blackgaze #sludgemetal #vinyl

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Record #847: Foals – Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost—Part 1 (2019)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

A trip to the record store used to be spontaneous. I would usually walk out with a small stack from bands I had never heard of before, or at least albums I had never listened to. These days, I’m far more intentional with my budget. I have a to-buy list that is constantly revisited and revised with repeated listens, organized by some careful calculus of how much I enjoy it and how inexpensively I can get the record.

Sometimes though, the old tinge of spontaneity will spark again, and I’ll take a calculated risk. In this case, I had been familiar with Foals for many years—Holy Fires still gets a decent amount of play time, but I’ve never ventured into the rest of their catalog. At least, until I found a sealed copy of Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost—Part 1 (a title borrowed from the warning screen from the original Legend of Zelda) at a local shop for a price I couldn’t ignore. And as gambles sometimes do, this one paid off.

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Record #846: Eli Kahn – How Are You? No Really…How Are You? (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

If you’ve gone anywhere in South Bend over the last ten years, there’s a non-zero chance that you’ve happened upon a performance by Eli Kahn. You might find him providing mood music at a winery or playing with his jazz duo After Hours at a party or headlining a music festival with the hip hop project The B.E.A.T. or providing a soundtrack for an experimental dance show or creating ambience for an art opening.

He’s practically a local cryptid at this point, playing anywhere and everywhere live music can be found with an impressive array of effects pedals and a custom fanned-fret seven-string (with two bass strings on the bottom).

His first solo record, How Are You? No Really…How Are You? is as comprehensive and delightful CV anyone could ask for from Kahn, tying together diverse influences like lo-fi hip hop, jazz, and post rock.

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Record #845: E-L-R – Vexier (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

The German word “Vexier” is an odd term. It’s likely derived from the Latin “vexare” which means to plague or irritate, but it’s used in some dialects to describe a puzzle. For instance, “Vexierbild” is the term used for a double image: an innocent illustration that hides a more sinister image (the best example being “All Is Vanity” by C. Allen Gilbert).

With that in mind, it’s a more than apt title for the sophomore release of Swiss doomgazers E-L-R. The band itself is so mysterious that I can’t find any information about the members besides their initials (there are plenty of photos of the band, but they aren’t labeled). It is a deceptive album that has the initial impression of being rather subdued, but closer inspection reveals a far darker album lurking beneath the surface—not unlike a Vexierbild.

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Record #844: caroline – caroline (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

There’s a phrase that gets tossed around sometimes: strange beast. And for the life of me, I can’t think of a better description of this record.

It’s as approachable as it is esoteric, as subdued as it is grandiose, as domestic as it is wild, as patient as it is frantic. It feels almost like a big huge fluffy bear-like beast that you want to snuggle up to, even though you know it might rip your head off.

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Record #843: Absent In Body – Plague God (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

There’s been no shortage of “Pandemic Records.” Whole hosts of artists have attempted to put our shared angst to tape, and if I’m honest, I’m starting to grow weary of it—and I’m even in the process of recording one myself.

But when it comes to Plague God, the devastating debut from post/sludge/industrial metal supergroup Absent In Body, diving back into the darkest parts of the last two years isn’t just tolerable—it feels essential. The collective trauma of the Covid pandemic—and all the political and spiritual upheaval that ran adjacent to it—is a heavy weight to bear, but Absent In Body seems tailor-made for the task. It’s as radical as it is reverent, using crushing heaviness, dark atmospheres, and delicate passages as a canvas for a portrait of mourning and celebration, grief and hope, devotion and doubt.

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Record #842: Chalk Hands – Try Not To Think About Death (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Ever since I’ve discovered that screamo was an actual subgenre and not just what my mom calls any band with screaming (Thrice and Alcest have both bore the term), I’ve found it very difficult to find much screamo that I like. Bands like envy and Boneflower are gorgeous and cathartic in a way that hits me to my core, but most of the pioneers of the genre—Orchid, Saetia, pg.99, et al, have inspired an almost visceral rejection from my ears. As a relatable tweet once said, “scream fans will say, ‘this track is legendary’ then play the absolute worst song you’ve ever heard.”

But every once in a while, something will come out of that scene that blows me away. Don’t Think About Death, the long-awaited debut full length from Brighton UK’s Chalk Hands, definitely uses screamo’s conventions as a sonic center, but it uses that palette to create one of the most moving records I’ve heard yet this year.

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