Blog

Daniel Hales & The Frost Leaves | You Make a Better Door Than a Window

Fri, 11 May 2012 18:06:00 GMT

James Brubaker

Daniel hales, and the frost heaves’ album You Make a Better Door Than a Window feels like a labor of love. The CD—the first new CD I’ve added to my collection in years—arrived in the mail with a photocopied lyric book in the jewel case—complimenting the nicely designed, glossy j-card—and a ‘zine-like, chapbook called I Have a Song to Tell You Now, which describes itself as “11 poems that aren’t about the album You Make a Better Door Than a Window…” Of course, that claim isn’t entirely true as these poems, written by an impressive array of writers (including Daniel Mahoney, Michael Earl Craig, and Corwin Ericson, among others) each seem to carry at least a passing relationship to the album’s twelve songs. The addition of the chapbook (printed by Setebos Press), is a nice touch, and gives the project the feeling of being just that—a project, a lovely and compelling artifact on which a group of people spent some serious time and energy. As I’m neither a poet, nor a competent reviewer of poetry, from here on out, I’m going to stick to a discussion of the album, proper. Let it be noted, though, that the chapbook is a nice touch and it makes the album feel like something special, before even hearing a single note.

On its own, You Make a Better Door Than a Window is a pretty nice album. Album opener, “Halo Over My Horns,” seems to nod toward some of The Clientele’s later work, invoking a warm and spacious autumnal atmosphere. “Braille for God,” builds on that atmosphere, rooting itself in delicate guitar figures that feel quietly lush thanks to some subtle horns, strings, and bells. Elsewhere, “Sick Day,” features another gorgeous, autumnal arrangement, the vaguely alt-country-ish “All the Owes in Tomorrow,” is fresh and loose, providing an engaging counterpoint to some of the album’s tighter arrangements, and “Present Perfect Tents,” is an impressive sideways step into Revolver-era, Beatles-esque psychadelia.

Generally speaking, Daniel hales, and the frost heaves have made a strong, atmospheric album with You Make a Better Door Than a Window. Of course, not everything here quite works—the drawn-out metaphors of “Bubble Test,” and “Singing in the Breakdown Lane” are too-cute by half, and despite its lovely, rootsy production, “Woman Inside My Head,” loses itself in a forced, dropped-g attempt at dialect and a bit too much of an emphasis on the banal (“But my tires need alignin’, the toilet needs a plungin’”), especially when compared to the lovely lyrics of “Present Perfect Tents” (“I ripped a page out of the light/and though every word’s a lie/the truth is each one tries…”). That being said, the album’s hits far outweigh its misses and, in the end, You Make a Better Door Than a Window proves itself worth both the time and energy Daniel Hales et al put into the production of the album and chapbook, and the time it takes to read and listen through both.

The Mars Volta | Noctourniquet

Fri, 11 May 2012 18:07:00 GMT

Darien Trujillo

Noctourniquet, a term coined by Cedric Bixler-Zavala, vocalist of The Mars Volta, signifies a state of mind. The term refers to a mental means of remedying the turbulent thoughts that accompany night, a way to surf the waves of life brought on by storms of inevitability. Noctourniquet is also the title of The Mars Volta’s sixth full-length studio album—a suiting title when one considers the band’s now settled dispute with Warner-Bro s. Records over the release date and prospective sales of Noctourniquet, which has finally been released as the follow-up , almost three years later, to what some consider the group’s worst album, Octahedron. On Noctourinquet , The Mars Volta’s erratic sound continues to venture into the unknown, once again rejuvenating the face of modern prog-rock in the name of introspective expression. It is the band’s first album without contributions from long time keyboardist Isaiah “Ikey” Owens and guitar virtuoso John Frusciante. Drummer, Deantoni Parks, a former collaborator on guitarist/producer Omar Rodriguez- Lopez’s side project the Omar Rodriguez-Lopez Group, has joined the roster for this production. Over the course of their last five albums, The Mars Volta have recreated themselves time and time again. Each transformation has been derived from Rodriguez-Lopez’s fastidious and experimental production methods. Some albums have featured an amalgam of musicians playing a myriad of supporting instruments (congas, saxophone, and keyboard), increasing those album s’ symphonic dynamism while producing some lucidity amidst the chaos of Rodriguez-Lopez’s free verse guitar and Bixler-Zavala’s brooding lyrics. Other albums feature less instrumentation, distilling the band’s sound into something more reminiscent of Rodriguez-Lopez’s and Bixler Zavala’s previous band, At the Drive-In.

At first listen, Noctourniquet is not outright emblematic of The Mars Volta sound fans have grown accustomed to. However, it does bear their heterogeneous code: melodic vocals, narrative lyrics, wicked guitar phrases and dynamic layering. Unlike Frances the Mute and De-loused i n the Comatorium, Noctourniquet, is not solely vested in a singular bizarre concept nor does it feature the band’s signature lengthy instrumental jams. Noctourniquet is an album that sees Rodriguez-Lopez and his brother Marcel replace the usual cast of secondary musicians with synthesizers and samplers. Rodriguez-Lopez, being the brain trust behind The Mars Volta, abandons his signature, psychedelic six-string discourse, pursuing, instead, a voice rooted in more synthetic sounds.

The opening track, “The Whip Hand,” has a future-punk feel created by a sinister opening guitar riff that makes way for Bixler-Zavala’s echoing verse and a collection of synthetic rhythms that enter the song at irregular intervals, adding to the chaos. Three-fourths of the way into the track, Bixler-Zavala monotonously shouts “I am a landmine so don’t you step on me,” adding to the song’s militant tone . At times, the album pushes toward a post-hardcore/crowd-rock feel, especially with songs like “Dyslexicon” “Moloch Walker” and “The Malkin Jewel.” Deantoni Park s’ high tempo drum chatter is all over these tracks, filling in any gaps of would be silence. The second half of the album features slower, bluesier songs with beautiful melodic guitar riffs. The synthesizers/organs in “Lapochka,” “Trinkets Pale of Moon,” and “Imago” play less of a commanding role and seek to compliment the sentimental feel created by Bixler-Zavala’s lamenting vocals. My favorite track “In Absentia,” captures the essence of Noctourniquet’s theme and is the quintessential example of synthetic experimentation on this album. The song is heavily indebted to effects, o ne of which makes Bixler-Zavala’s voice sound as if it is being transmitted from beyond the grave. The effect reminds me of Carol calling through the television in Poltergeist. “In Absentia” is crafted into two parts. The first is a sort of requiem told about a boy who is mourning his exile “In Absentia.” The drums and synthesizers are drenched in a heavy, decay-reverb effect, giving the track an otherworldly atmosphere. The second half of the song begins without notice and sounds like a completely new track. The tempo speeds up and the ominous noises morph into a hip-hop drumbeat with bright synthetic rhythms that swoop between the triumphant lyrics sung from the view of the protagonist who has conquered evil and been exalted.

“In Absentia” is about a mock state of mind, the concept behind the term, Noctourniquet. The song gives the word a frame of reference and places the album in a context that suggests turmoil. Noctourniquet’s, shorter, more accessible style is somewhat of a contradiction to what The Mars Volta have always done—finding a way to recreate themselves while staying true to their mission as musicians. That mission, which has always been to celebrate the internal monologue despite fans and corporate labels, has not been easy. Despite this, Noctourniquet celebrates the transience of creation. It is innovative and sonically loaded. Noctourniquet’s tracks are moody and pensive, and overall it displays much of what fans love about The Mars Volta production-wise, while keenly pushing their sound forward through experimentation with synthetic instrumentation.

Flaming Penises & Tax Fairness

Fri, 11 May 2012 17:05:00 GMT

Brian Gebhart

Stephen King wrote an op-ed titled “Tax Me, for F@%&’s Sake!” for The Daily Beast last week, and it’s received quite a bit of attention. At first glance, I was a little puzzled as to why. In the article, King makes some pretty obvious points about rich people and taxes—namely, that the wealthy should pay more in taxes. He also writes that most rich people “would rather douse their dicks with lighter fluid, strike a match, and dance around singing ‘Disco Inferno’ than pay one more cent in taxes to Uncle Sugar.”

Oh, right. That’s why the article got so much attention (and I must admit it’s a vivid image). That and the fact that he’s Stephen King, which is just another way of saying the article’s references range from flaming penises and the pope’s testicles to Santa Claus, old dog shit, and Justin Bieber. And also fat jokes. Apparently, King’s idea of a rebuttal to New Jersey governor Chris Christie is a crack about him being too busy at an “all-you-can-eat cheese buffet at Applebee’s in Jersey City.” How original. I’m sure the governor has never heard such a compelling argument. He’ll probably want to restore all the budget cuts of the past few years after hearing that one.

Let me get this out of the way: I agree with Mr. King that the wealthy should pay more in taxes. Where we part ways is in thinking an article like this one will do anything to bring about that goal. This is not to say that I don’t like seeing fiction writers enter the public arena. In fact, I’d be happy to see more of them engage in battles of ideas about issues of the contemporary world, political or otherwise. I just don’t see how simplistic arguments, a self-righteous tone, and mean-spirited jokes do anybody any good. I can’t imagine that anyone who didn’t already agree with King reading beyond the first paragraph. Hell, I do agree with him, and the only reason I read the whole thing was so that I could write this response.

But lest this post end up as one more useless screed, I’d like to offer up a much more successful example of a fiction writer thinking through America’s current troubles in essay form. Marilynne Robinson’s When I Was a Child I Read Books uses contemporary politics as a backdrop for delving into timeless issues of religion, science, and culture. She approaches history as a writer, teacher, and committed Christian, arguing for the importance of education, economic fairness, and social justice. In fact, she pulls together the strands of this argument from sources one might not expect, most notably Calvinist theology. She certainly doesn’t shy away from debating with other writers and thinkers, challenging much conventional wisdom in the process. But she never reduces the complexity of these issues or impugns the character of people who hold differing opinions, opting instead for a capacious understanding of human beings and our societies—you know, like a person who writes fiction might do.

Review of Black Dice's Mr. Impossible

Tue, 01 May 2012 21:45:00 GMT

Matt Austin

It's rare enough for a band to survive longer than a decade, but to be able to watch Black Dice grow from mutant hardcore to sprawling noise epics is a feat rarely matched, even if you stopped listening back when their shows ended in bloodshed. Now the band has entered a third phase, where relative coherence and melodies replace the brute force of experimentation, to varying degrees of success.

As guitarist Bjorn Copeland explained in an interview prior to its release, Mr. Impossible doesn't contain as much input from brother and bandmate Eric Copeland, who has been plugging away at a prolific solo career for the past couple years. Eric's work tends to be based on mangled loops of pop songs, stretched and distorted as his pitch-shifted moaning floats on top, mostly improvised and rarely settling into a steady groove. With third member Aaron Warren also preoccupied, the bulk of the work was handled by Bjorn, and as a result is their most guitar-heavy album since Cold Hands.

The biggest revelation is that the band is now paying attention to quantization, so their outre sounds now fit into a rigid musical grid. That is their next evolutionary step, applying their messy sound collage style to a traditional framework, with rhythms that recall abstract hip-hop and discrete sections in each song. Black Dice used to be big on audio smears, whether it was mountains of distorted guitars in their early days or processed noises that spread across their more recent tracks with no regard to time signatures. This formal reinvention may be just as hard to overcome for fans as the calm Beaches & Canyons was for fans of their brutal early 7"s. The rewarding part of a flawed masterpiece like "One Drop" or early stab at disco "Cone Toaster" was the queasy feeling that the band would fall apart, the song as brittle and jumbled as the miles of cables they use in their live setup.

Repo, their previous album (and toe-dip into this new pop style) had songs that ranged from 30 seconds to seven minutes, but Mr Impossible mostly stays in the 4-5 minute range, and sticks to a midtempo groove for most of its duration. The tracks are purposefully composed to fit the standard pop song template (intro, verse, chorus) instead of their old method of letting the samples guide the song, whether that took less than a minute or more than 10. Is that good or bad? Would I just be complaining about this record if it sounded closer to their records from five years ago? It's in Black Dice's nature to change, to suck up the detritus of modern culture and show the underbelly of constant information bombardment. What makes this record different is that using traditional song structure leads to a traditional album structure. There's a couple really catchy songs, but a lot of the album ends up blurring together, and not in a "one long song" kind of way. Part of the reason is the band is more likely to use textural dynamics than volume to color the songs, so there's not as much build up and release as in the past.

For once, one could say that Black Dice are obviously showing their influence: "Rodriguez" sounds like "Low Rider" put through a meat grinder, and the chopped cinematic strings in "Spy vs. Spy" recalls J. Dilla's sampling style. "The Jacker" uses wah guitar to summon what Sly Stone would have created during his decades as a recluse. The album’s sole epic “Carnitas” is like a guided tour through the grime of ‘70s NYC, with greasy sax and industrial grind bumping up against each other in a funky rhythm. There's a point where starting each track with a simple drum line and slowly adding elements begins to get old, but since they seem to be aiming for standard songcraft instead of formal reinvention, it shouldn't be surprising.

It’s unfair to expect Black Dice to blaze new trails with every release, so the fact that made a straight up album instead of an experimental music manifesto should be seen as a success. They still don’t sound like anyone other than themselves, and the fact that they view their work with the same scrutiny as more mainstream music, as opposed to sterile experimental technicians, is the reason they’re still around.

Staff News

Tue, 01 May 2012 21:26:00 GMT

Managing Editor Daniel Long named a 2012 Center for Fiction Emerging Writer Fellow. Details here.

Review of The Flaming Lips & Heady Fwends

Mon, 07 May 2012 06:22:00 GMT

James Brubaker

The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends could have been pretty bad. Upon learning of the album’s existence, I was certain the album would be one of a few things: an oddball side-collection of b-side-esque collaborations between The Lips and largely incongruent guest contributors; a strong Flaming Lips album marred by unnecessary guest contributors; or a hodge-podge of decent songs culled from a year of recording with a surprising assortment of guests that might have some nice moments, but would feel more like a hit-or-miss compilation than a proper record. None of these turned out to be accurate. Instead, The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends is a thoughtful, beautifully executed album that finds the contributions from its many collaborators impressively balanced with The Flaming Lips’ vision and aesthetic. That is to say, Heady Fwends never feels like anything but a Flaming Lips record, but thanks to some impressive performances from its guests, the album’s impressive sense of unity is accentuated by the pure, ecstatic joy of innovation and collaboration brought to the project by The Lips’ restless processes and experimentation.

The album opener, “2012,” featuring guest vocals from Ke$ha and Biz Markie, is the album’s first pleasant surprise, and sets the tone for what’s to come—the song is dark and alien, a nightmare-party jam about dropping acid and ringing in the new year. Tonally, the song’s elements are mostly familiar territory for The Flaming Lips, except for the propulsive electro-clash wildness and Ke$ha’s surprisingly edgy vocal performance. Not being much of a Ke$ha fan, “2012” was one of the songs I was least excited about heading into Heady Fwends. As it happens, the song is an excellent opening cut, and Ke$ha’s vocals are beautifully incorporated into the Lips’ skittery, sci-fi party jam. Other highlights include the off-kilter, martial cadence and woozy vocal interplay between Wayne Coyne and Justin Vernon on “Ashes in the Air,” (opening lyric: “You and me, we’re both so fucked up/But you’re fucked up in the good way/And I’m fucked up in the bad.”), the raucous and wild Pefuse 73 collaboration, “Supermoon Made Me Want to Pee,” “You, Man? Human?” with Nick Cave’s sermon-like vocals, “I’m Working at NASA on Acid,” with The Lightning Bolt, and, of course, the album’s most stunning moment, a ten-minute, acid-soaked, droning but soulful cover of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” with Erykah Badu on vocals. To look at this list of highlights, it would be tempting write Heady Fwends off as an album that isn’t able to live up to the sum of its parts—this, again, is wrong. As it happens, Heady Fwends’ most impressive feat that, instead of feeling like an experimental one-off, or “side project,” it has the heft and feel of a proper album.

Ultimately, The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends works because it successfully merges The Flaming Lips’ aesthetic with strong, personality preserving guest-turns from its many collaborators, while managing to hang together as a cohesive, fully developed album. But there is another reason that Heady Fwends works so well—the project was almost entirely born out of experiment. It’s easy for artists in any media to find themselves stuck in ruts. Perhaps as a way of avoiding this (or maybe it was only ever just for the fun of it) the various collaborations that led to Heady Fwends were all experiments of sorts—through working with so many musicians, the results were bound to be unpredictable and varied. As a result, the nervous energy and risk inherent in so much experimentation turns the album into a celebration of its adventurous spirit and experimental processes as much as it is a fantastic collection of songs.

Extra, Extra

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 04:27:00 GMT

The news today is Robert Lopez's No News Today, featuring a poem by our own Jeff Simpson, EIC.

Black River Chapbook Competition

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 20:54:00 GMT

The Black River Chapbook Competition is a semi-annual prize from Black Lawrence Press for a chapbook of short stories or poems. Entries should be between 16 and 36 pages in length. The winner will receive $500 and publication.

Deadline: May 31.

Jane Eyre Illustrated

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 16:44:00 GMT

Amna Shams

Reading Jane Eyre at 16, I did not like Edward Rochester. I did not picture an Orson Welles look-a-like or even a Michael Fassbender-esque hero. I was thrown into a world that was dark and gritty and left little room for happiness. I became a fan instantly, although my interpretation of the novel changed over the years.

Literature appeals to the masses because it leaves room for interpretation. The descriptions allow readers to create their own worlds with unique characters.

Fans are known to obsess over the work of their favorite authors. Jane Eyre Illustrated is a unique website in that it provides not only a look at the evolution of Jane Eyre over the years, but it allows the viewer to see how the visual display of books can shift our perceptions to see the work in a new context.

Jane Eyre was published in 1847. Regarded as a masterpiece and sufferable to many a feminist critique, the novel, written by Charlotte Bronte, has never been out of print in its 164 year history. As the collection shows, images of Jane Eyre, and her Byronic hero, Edward Rochester, vary significantly and range from book illustrations and postage stamps, to graphic novels.

The most interesting aspect to the collection is how the lines of interpretation become reconstructed. As a teenager, the Jane I envisioned was fragile and awkward. But over the years, I began to see her as a composed figure with strong convictions. I was impressed to see both of my versions in the collection. Each image implies that there is no one “true” Jane; she is just as unique as Bronte described, just now in illustrated form. Helen Sewell's 1938 book illustrations capture the gloomy essence and Gothic characteristics by using caustic blues and simple lines. Here, Jane seems softer, whereas Richard Lebenson uses charcoal to convey a deep sense of foreboding and imminent danger in his 1984 depiction.

Bronte described her character as “plain, obscure, and little,” but this site shows a vastly different woman. With its colorful and dreary reimagining, Jane Eyre Illustrated shows how the packaging and marketing of books alters our reactions, perhaps even our judgments of the work between the covers. It is a collection of all things not so plain, and not so obscure.

Review of Zammuto's Zammuto

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 20:59:00 GMT

James Brubaker

In the early 00’s, The Books showed up out, seemingly out of nowhere, with two lovely and engaging albums crafted from chopped up found sounds and a lovely, searching hybrid of electronic pop music and folk. After the unqualified successes of the, now, oddly overlooked Thought for Food and the even more impressive The Lemon of Pink, The Books seemed to lose their way on the spotty Lost and Safe before spinning off into an odd void of on-again-off-again Pitchfork news updates that culminated in the pleasant-enough-but-nothing-special 2010 release, The Way Out. After The Books peaked so early with The Lemon of Pink then spent the rest of the decade in decline, it wasn’t particularly surprising or disappointing when the duo, comprised of Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jeong parted ways. Now, with Zammuto’s release of his new eponymous full-length, the project’s dissolution can be recontextualized from expected, to outright necessary.

The songs on Zammuto cover a wide range of territory, from electro-folk, to prog-inflected pop, to collages of funky pop cut with found sounds. On the one hand, Zammuto feels like a logical extension of Zammuto’s work with The Books, while on the other, it introduces a fresh emphasis on warm textures and melody that somehow got lost in the shuffle in the back half of The Book’s problematic 00’s. Album opener “Yay,” works as a fine point of departure for Zammuto’s solo work. Steeped in heavy percussion, a thoughtful organ arrangement, and a melodic core comprised of what sounds like chopped and splattered, effects-laden vocals, the song breaks from the meandering, static and skeletal folk bits designed to spotlight various samples, and moves, instead, towards a pop-infused melodicism. This move becomes even more apparent on tracks like the lively and ecstatic “F U C-3PO,” and the funky “Weird Ceiling.” To this end, Zammuto’s biggest success is his move away from the navel-gazing, sample-centric approach of The Books toward compositions that are more interested in motion and energy. In other words, if The Books were about the analysis of samples, Zammuto is about the synthesis of samples into a more satisfying whole.

Of course, Zammuto isn’t flawless. It’s back half loses much of the momentum of its first as the tempos slow down and the compositions open up to the point that there is almost too much space between the songs’ various elements—“Harlequin” has some nice moments, but is slow to get started, and drags on for much of its six minutes, and the funky synths and artificial voice sample of “Zebra Butt” feels like an in-joke that isn’t particularly funny or enjoyable. Still, on the whole, Zammuto is an exciting album that indicates that Nick Zammuto has come away from his decade in The Books with a refreshed sense of purpose and a willingness to hang on to what worked from his old project, while bringing new ideas into his compositions.

Review of Dilloway's Modern Jester

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 20:53:00 GMT

James Brubaker

There is something about Aaron Dilloway’s Modern Jester that makes me want to use visual metaphors as descriptors. Imagine art made with a Spirograph, the effortless symmetry and elegant curves of those designs intersecting and spiraling into and out of themselves. Now imagine that, instead of a plain old spirograph, we were instead using a hybrid Spin Art/Spirograph, making those lovely, loping lines and precise geometric patterns messier, more raw. Now, and here is the last step, imagine that, instead of running paint into our fantastical Spin Art/Spirograph art making machine, we were dumping blood, and gasoline, and freshly chopped grass mixed with vinegar, and yellow phlegm, and molten ore, and any number of other odd fluids—bodily or otherwise—into the machine to make the designs. The resulting piece of art would be a pretty accurate visual representation of Modern Jester—an album of unabashed, unhinged loops of white noise.

Dilloway is best known for his work with Michigan sound murderers Wolf Eyes, whose music ranged from terror-inducing post-industrial noise jams, to sinister, nightmare inducing ambient drone. These same threads—and many variations on them—run through Modern Jester, but while Wolf Eyes tended to compartmentalize their aesthetic experiments by album (2001’s Dread was a clanging, post-industrial collection of songs, for example, while 2005’s Dead Hills was more firmly rooted in the “dark ambient” approach) Dilloway has managed to bring them all together—and then some—to construct one of the more ambitious, seamless albums of his career.

Released on four sides of vinyl, Modern Jester is an expansive and architectural album. Dilloway’s compositions, built largely around various loops, are exercises in building tension. Each track is a series of mutations, escalations, and deconstructions in which the repetitions of patterns and loops are timed perfectly to elicit often times uncomfortable visceral responses from the listener. The album’s second track, “Eight Cut Scars (For Robert Turman),” builds around a brief, gritty distortion loop. As Dilloway heaps additional loops into the mix, the track becomes a delicious pile-up, a headache inducing, stomach churning mess of noise, fighting for release. But Dilloway’s compositions rarely offer release, and when they do, that release is often just as confounding as the tension of the build-up. “Eight Cut Scars,” as it were, never offers that release—only brief moments of respite, where the cacophony subsides momentarily allowing listeners to refocus on a single loop. Of course the track builds and subsides, and builds and subsides, until we’re left with a single, loud loop that abruptly stops, giving way to the placid, and oddly beautiful “Labyrinths and Jokes.”

As with most of the best noise artists, there is something profoundly physical about Dilloway’s album. His use of repetition in creating this album’s unsettling soundscapes has a way of tightening our muscles, making us grind our teeth a little as we listen. While some might feel these responses as a sign of irritation, the plain truth is that Dilloway’s compositions are about making us feeling uncomfortable to varying degrees. The aforementioned “Labyrinths and Jokes,” is a mildly unsettling track that might have been conventionally pretty were its gait not a little too unsteady. Conversely, the nineteen minute “Body Chaos,” builds from arrhythmic, percussive noodling into terror inducing, exploding bomb, earfuck territory, complete with guttural moans and immense chasms of feedback and static. Likewise, “Shatter All Organized Activities (Eat the Rich),” lives up to its name, shifting through various forms of audio-vitriol.

Ultimately, Modern Jester feels like an important album. Each composition is so meticulously constructed that the album becomes a sort of aural cathedral. It is tempting to extend the metaphor and make that cathedral rife with decay, but each track is so architecturally sound that the cathedral ought to last forever. Besides, it isn’t the ugliness of many of the textures Dilloway employs on Modern Jester that makes the album so uneasy and, at times, physically difficult to listen to—it is the moves he makes with those textures. Just as we become accustomed to each iteration of a loop, or each movement within a composition, Dilloway tweaks it just right so that our uneasiness is derived from the minor variations, not the violence of the sounds themselves—those slight tweaks come to represent an aural equivalent to the uncanny valley, as we struggle to make sense of those shifts, no matter how subtle they are. To be blunt, Modern Jester isn’t an album for all of our readers—its sounds are violent, uncomfortable, and devoid of any notion of conventional melody. But make no mistake, Dilloway has made a special album with Modern Jester. From the almost playful tonal bursts of album opener “Tremors” to the woozy static of album closer “After the Showers,” which runs infinitely into side four’s locked groove, Dilloway has made a challenging but rewarding album that doesn’t just stand to be one of the best noise albums of the year, but one of the best albums of the year, period.

Nominate Fiction, Win Us An Award

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 20:25:00 GMT

Readers of The Fiddleback,

Here's a chance to nominate your favorite fiction pieces that are over 1,000 words long. Individual writers earn cash prizes, but online magazines with a high number of nominations are also recognized. So comb those archives and do right by the stories you loved.

Click on the image or click here.

Five Dollars / Five Days is here.

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 20:33:00 GMT

Well, not "here," but here.

Spread the word.

2.2 is Live! Live! Live!

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 18:32:00 GMT

2.2 is live, featuring work by Jason Bredle, Kiki Vera Johnson, Joe Bonomo, Chiara Barzini, Chris Keimig, James Ferry, Caitlin Plunkett, Lowell Jaeger, Ark Codex (Calamari Press), Shelly Oria, Angie Mullen, Will Gray, and Jamie Kinroy. Plus music reviews, book reviews, and an interview with Campbell McGrath. DON'T. MISS. OUT.

The Jealous Curator Presents Girl Crush

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 21:16:00 GMT

Our good friend and dynamite art blogger, The Jealous Curator, is hosting a series of one-day art workshops held at the studios of amazing women artists. Attendees will make art and discuss creative issues while eating fancy sandwiches and sipping tea.

Look for a Girl Crush party coming to a city near you.