so i re-registered and whatever seemed to be off is working now, so while i wait for the 5-6 hour process of MOG indexing what i have, i started thinking about my upcoming trip to Ohio and music's pivotal role it plays when it can be the only familiar thing in an unfamiliar place. while ohio is where much of my extended family reside, i only go every 5 years or so, so it's just as strange as it was last time, and i think whatever i'm going to get attatched to there is going to be just as memorable as those from the trip to Canada two years ago. I visited the Vancouver area for roughly a month in various places. British Columbia basically struck me as "Canada for people who don't want to be too far away from the US but can still say they've been to Canada and laugh at how Borders turns into Chapters", but it did have what i've only seen previously in France: keeping the forest around even the biggest cities. And at the risk of falling into a pompous canadian stereotype, i really did enjoy how "everything" was scaled-back from it's american counterpart. if a store has a sale, they dont grafitti a whole building to say it, most of the waiters i encountered were not infused with this ingratiating exuberance ("you're at a ten... we need you at about a seven...") the TV didn't shout at you or make attempts at your manliness with trucks that carry loads you'll never have (at least not ludicrously so, lets be serious, they're still commercials), local events, if they were even sponsored, wasnt a visual coke-up of attention grabbing and in-your-face gabbering. and somehow oh somehow it managed to remain an appealing and stimulating place. don't get me wrong, i'm an American (at least half anyway), so a big part of me was relieved and excited to return to the hive of crass excess and barely managed cultural confusion and chaos that persists here, but I think because of this combination of restraint and vibrancy that i felt throughout my trip i really got close to a group called The Books.
The Books are a two man group who cause record store clerks a brief amount of confusion before they choose to file them in either electronic or indie (usually the latter), they're from new york, and are big on sampling movies, television events, and field recordings and mixing them with sometimes-highly-edited-sometimes-straight acoustic accompaniment (whether it be a guitar or a cello or drums). the band started when one of them, who wrote movie scores for a living, was challenged to write music that could not possibly be used for a movie. their music sometimes have lyrics, or they position their samples as to be lyrical, often sounding as if they were organized in a random sequence. rather than sounding non-sensically pretentious, their words match the carefully considered but gracefully intense music. two albums later, i'm listening to their new one "Lost and Safe", riding public transport and ferries to different places, and it doesn't stop going on repeat. it's sonically rich, lush, but not sentimental in any way. it's never explicitly exuberant or sad, it just matches the vibrancy of your surroundings, almost endlessly adaptable and not only useable but conducive to normal situations. snatches of conversations while waiting in line, or soundtracking your casual intake of the large and calm city around you, or highlighting the absurd but thrilling aspects of visiting a major zoo, or keeping you sane and even enjoying the painful slowness of border crossing. even in their rare and brief chaotic stretches, you realize even then what's around you only have the rudimentary illusion of structure and that all appears normal only because you're used to it. The Books pretty much stand alone not just maybe for what they do but definitely for their sonic and mental impact, and their last album was their situational flexibility and musical songwriting approaching closer to a perfect realization.
so here's some youtubbery, both videos taken from their recent dvd collection of videos titled "Playall"
then again, there's the side where the music simply presents itself, with no reference to outside of influences, and where the attatchment simply happens because it's there or a simply finds itself on repeat. the white stripes found a way to come back again and again and stick somehow as something approriate for a lot of situations, moods and places, not sure why, but there's always things that dont have an explanation past just us liking them. "Get behind me Satan" is inextricably linked to days where i just wanted to stay indoors and look at the passing ships with binoculars and eat all the crap i bought that i wouldnt find in the states. they have funny chips.
and milk comes in bags.
