Just finished reading Mats Jonsson’s Hey Princess (preview here). It’s an autobiographical take on coming of age in late-90s Sweden, often brutally honest, and all the funnier for it. Jonsson’s art is fairly straightforward (I’d say comparisons to Jeffrey Brown would not be out of line), but that seems appropriate for the self-deprecating tone that …
Since I rambled a bit about Centurion in this space, I thought it might be apt to talk a bit about a film I liked significantly more. In this case, it’s Winter’s Bone, which I saw at BAM a few weeks ago. It’s impressive: the acting is uniformly top-notch, from familiar faces (a couple of …
I reviewed S’s Sadstyle for Tiny Mix Tapes.
This album is indeed a four-track project from the 90s, but it’s also a reminder of exactly why the home-recordings aesthetic works. These songs can feel messy at times, but that mirrors the messiness of the lives documented in them, something Ghetto’s lyrics and (especially) …
Saw the Neil Marshall-directed Centurion at IndieScreen via a Film Comment-curated part of the Northside Festival. (I may have exhausted my quota of descriptive modifiers for the night right there.) The very short version: it’s a good action film. The slightly longer version: It’s a good action film with an unfortunate tendency to throw in …
1. Of note: Astrophil Press is currently using Kickstarter to raise money for a larger print run of their repress of Brian Evenson’s collection Contagion. More information can be found here.
2. Also of note: Michael Kimball’s How Much of Us There Was will be reissued by Tyrant Books in the fall.
Chatted with Ben Greenman right about here. His new collection What He’s Poised To Do is quite good, and served as the starting point for much of the discussion. Also covered: revisions, editions, and “Street Fighting Man.” Here’s one section:
Everything should be subverted if possible. That’s how you know you have an idea, and …
dälek’s Gutter Tactics is a fine, fine record. Posted below is the Alexandra Momin-directed video for “2012 (The Pillage),” which boasts one of the more ominous uses of skyline images in recent memory.
Two links; both dealing with artistic legacies and work coming from New York City.
1. Whitney Pastorek announces the shutdown of Pindeldyboz, with some nicely bleak humor thrown in.
And then hopefully, someday, I’ll stop paying the web hosting fees, and the site will be gone. In my dreams I see it hosting an exciting array …
Doug Mosurock’s review of Tre Orsi’s new album? Quite good, incorporating thoughts on a whole long-dormant subgenre and a fine analysis of the record in question.
With crisp, balanced production by Bedhead’s Bubba Kadane, and the sort of Sonic Youth/Unwound-informed octave dynamics, surges in volume and measured aggression, and literate, even masculine lyrical reads, …
As discussed last week, I have contributed to Word Riot’s Published for a Day, along with folks like Shya Scanlon, Jackie Corley, J.A. Tyler, and Paula Bomer.
For those who are curious, this link will be active until midnight today. More information on the novel in question can be found here.
Longtime readers of this blog — or, hell, of my Twitter presence — may also note that I’ve been talking about a novella or short novel in progress. (Which is as good a time as any to volley out a link to the Emerging Writers Network’s Novella Month.) Later than expected last night, I finished …
So: longtime readers of this space might remember some mentions of a novel-in-progress. (Titled, for what it’s worth, The Freestanding.) I finished work on it a while ago; had a go at finding a home for it, and was unsuccessful at that. Eventually, I ended up shifting my interest elsewhere — I’m still proud of …
One: Via Richard Nash, the launch of Pre/Post Books, which looks to be taking an intelligent approach to both the print and digital editions of their catalog:
…we hope our deep respect for the printed book as a storytelling canvas is reflected in the finished product.Simultaneously this project embraces digital. The online editions of …
Heading out of town for a couple of days for a foray — my first — to scenic Las Vegas, Nevada. Posting will resume once I’m back.
When I was in Seattle last month, I caught a set from Javelin at the Vera Project. It wasn’t quite my thing — in the world of ramshackle DIY …
I reviewed the latest album from The Lodger, Flashbacks, for Dusted:
Siddall’s voice is in the same melancholy vein as Field Mice/Trembling Blue Stars mainstay Robert Wratten, and the Lodger’s music suggests that that influence goes beyond the vocal approach. The Lodger takes a restrained, austere approach to uptempo, jangling rock — though …