Sign ☮' The Times

#NerdSummer2011

Thesis

I spend all day thinking about blogging, then get restlessly sleepy when it comes time to blog. It's usually around this time of the night that I wonder Why Blog. Mostly because my sleep schedule is so screwed up that I'm awake every night til 5 AM, and there's not much to do in the predawn but listen to Prince and pretend I'm a writer. So let's pretend!

MOONFACE

Killed it in concert. Spencer Krug further cements his place in the pantheon of Canadian music gods. It's the third time I've seen him live (in 2007 with Sunset Rubdown, last year with Wolf Parade, and this year as Moonface). This may have been the best performance of the three, what with those magnificent organ swells and driving drum pads. It didn't hurt that I got to go it alone - after all, what's better than solo concert-going? Just me and the music. I decided to walk to Russian Recording to clear out my headroom. Downtown Bton's magic hour neighborhoods and dogwalkers were welcome sights for this emotional brain. By the time I was at the venue, I was ready to stand and face the music. Opener Flow Child's enveloping synth loops and reverb-heavy vocals recalled Panda Bear without seeming derivative, and Moonface drove through their set like a pair possessed (Spencer brought a percussionist for the tour). The nicest touch of all was the closing song: a reworked "All Fires" from Swan Lake's Beast Moans, now sounding tremendous and Wagnerian.

It's important to note that Russian's sound is still the best in town. Hot dog, it's great not to have ringing ears after a concert. After spending all my life without attending a show there, I've in the past month seen three (Liturgy and Woods/Kurt Vile being the other stellar gigs). I still need to write about those shows.

Summer Music Review (05)

A quick one, while I'm awake. In this Summer Music Review, I'll discuss my favorite record of the summer, and certainly one of the year's best:

As High As The Highest Heavens And From The Center

To The Circumference Of The Earth [2011]

by True Widow

(Kemado)

True Widow deserve better than this harried 5 AM review. I'll keep it short at the risk of becoming incomprehensible soon. The record is a syrupy dose of stoner shoegaze doom slowcore. In other words, heavy and wholesome. The pace is glacial and the riffs are edgy. It's noisy without being abrasive, and airy without being thin. The vocals are smooth and chilled out. True Widow have churned out the perfect music for the slow motion sludge of a sweaty summer afternoon. Or the blurred-out haze of a midnight in July. The music itself feels humid (in the best possible way). So: kick back, turn up the volume, and get sweaty with the hottest and heaviest album of the summer.

Conclusions

Another brief post. It'll do for now. August holds the promise of heatwaves and thunderstorms, so I'm sure I'll be inside plenty enough to blog on the regular. Maybe you (lucky reader) will even get a virtual tour of my new apartment or stumble upon the Best Albums Of All-Time list waiting to reveal itself on #METASWAG. Until then!

<3 Weezy