Category: Pop

Album Reviews 22/12/08

-(16)-, Into Dust (Relapse Records)

Come to think of it, it’s been a while since I covered a sludge-metal album, which is weird, because I usually get a lot of jollies out of that genre: usually you can count on hearing stuff that treads some sort of middle ground between Black Sabbath and Melvins, depending on whether or not the singer can actually sing at all. These guys are from Los Angeles, and this, their eighth album, is more or less a conceptual trip that revolves around living a generally miserable life, starting with “Misfortune Teller,” a borderline math-metal joint in which an eviction notice is served to some poor dude in the wake of Hurricane Irma; singer and second-banana guitarist Bobby Ferry does a pretty good Crowbar imitation, indicating that their template pays obeisance to the genre’s gold standards. “Dead Eyes” is good stuff too, aping the vibe of early Ministry; “Scrape the Rocks” shoots for doomy Kyuss respectability and largely succeeds. A

Journey, Freedom (BMG Records)

Didn’t get to this one when it first landed in my inbox in July, but as always, it’s a good bet that half the people who were big fans of this arena-rock band back in the day are totally unaware that they are still at it. Yes, the legend continues, after guitarist Neil Schon married the bleached blonde who, with a previous loverboy, had somehow crashed an Obama party when he was still president, and then there was the one about how, after singer Steve Perry had had enough of it, they hired a new singer after seeing him karaokeing Journey tunes on YouTube. I’ll gladly cop actually to liking some of the jacked-hormone stuff that was on their 2005 full-length album Generations, and there’s more of that here, with the morose-rockout-morose opening tune “Together We Run,” the Escape-microwaving sounds of “Don’t Give Up On Us,” and so on. No new tricks here, but that’s the punchline; when you’ve become an AOR meme band there’s no need to ditch the original formula. A

Playlist

• Yikes, Dec. 9 already, and me with a mere paucity of albums to talk about, because all the albums have already been released and are being loaded onto Santa’s magic sleigh, to be dropped off at the homes of people who still buy things like albums and asbestos flooring! But wait a minute, folks, there are actually a few new records that have hit my all-seeing radar, starting with NIKSHOWW, a rapper from someplace or other, Google only found like 100 things associated with the guy, but he’s obviously a highbrow bookworm type, as he was a feat guest on Fiction Fake’s “L. A. U. G. H (Laugh at Ugly Generic Hoes),” which, you can tell by the title, is commonly played at retired accountants’ 50th wedding anniversary bashes. Oh, who is this guy anyway, let’s just move this along, his forthcoming new album, Anxiety Ridden Isolationist, his second. Not a lot of info to be found on this album, but his latest song on Spotify, “Fatal Shot,” is okay once you get past the subtle-ish Autotune. The beat is comprised of gloomy piano and (spoiler) trap drums, and his flow is pretty cool even though his lines (sample lyric: “Everybody that’s in tune knows I’m in a different lane / I will fulfill my dreams of controlling center stage”) are kind of — OK, massively — contrived and old, like if people rapped in ancient Egypt, these are the kinds of rhymes they spat for the entertainment of mummies and whatever. But that’s OK!

• French Montana is a rapper from Morocco, or more specifically Casablanca, the largest city in Morocco, and I shall talk briefly about his new album, Coke Boys 6, here in my column. Feats will include Max B, D Thang, Cheese, Kenzo B and Stove God; it’s the sixth installment of his Coke Boys mixtape series, the first since 2020’s Coke Boys 5. Montana’s mushmouthed style is fun in its way; there’s a sample of “Money Heist Edition” on Instagram if you’re curious to hear how “underground” he is (not very, judging by the rather unadventurous 1970s girl-group-flavored beat.

• The Lumineers are an alternative folk band from Denver, Colorado. They enjoy such healthy pastimes as playing unnecessary cellos and wearing cabbie hats in order to hide bald spots or Martian antennae, whichever. The band’s principals are heavily into Top 40 radio regulars like Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Tom Petty, so, no there is no black metal or chopped-and-screwed sampledelia on this album, a 10th Anniversary Edition of their debut LP, The Lumineers, but I did check for that just in case. “Stubborn Love” is probably the most popular tune from this album, a loping number you probably mistook for an Arcade Fire B-side the first time you heard it; definitely a Tom Petty vibe going on there.

• We’ll wrap up the week with singer/actress and iconic punk fixture Nina Hagen, who will release her 14th album, Unity, this week! Fun fact, when Angela Merkel ended her 16-year chancellorship of Germany last December, she chose Hagen’s song “Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen (You Forgot the Colour Film)” as one of the three tunes to be played at her Großer Zapfenstreich military leaving ceremony. Yes, that’s what happens to old punks, they become the opposite of punk. The title track of this new album is a funky, Warhol-esque pastiche of “woke” epithets and bad singing, but don’t let that stop you.

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

At the Sofaplex 22/12/01

Tár (R)

Cate Blanchett, Noémie Merlant.

Lydia Tár (Blanchett) is the conductor of a symphony in Berlin. She has professional success; a large apartment; a child with her wife and the symphony’s first violinist, Sharon (Nina Hoss); a book about to hit shelves, and a much-awaited recording of a Mahler symphony in the works. But behind all of this are the increasingly desperate emails from a young woman Lydia had some sort of relationship with and has now blackballed from work with other symphonies. Her assistant Francesca (Merlant) seems aware that this relationship has the potential to do real damage (there are regular suggestions that this relationship is not the first of its kind) but Lydia pretends not to be aware of the mounting darkness — nor does this gathering storm stop her from pursuing a new young musician in the symphony.

The movie is very clever in the way it puts all the Bad Man behavior in this female character. And I find it interesting how it shows us the power dynamics, the fragile self-esteem, the carelessness and the selfishness but not the sex. We’re seeing the wreckage, not the crash, and Blanchett does great things (particularly with the way she uses her voice and with small gestures) as the person walking through the scene and trying hard to stay convinced that they didn’t cause the disaster. Truly, Blanchett is the movie, and I can see why Oscar predictors have been labeling hers as the performance to beat this year. The movie is long with deliberate, not-at-all speedy pacing but Blanchett makes the destructive Lydia impossible to look away from. A Available for rent or purchase.

Causeway (R)

Jennifer Lawrence, Brian Tyree Henry.

Lynsey (Lawrence) is recently home from military service in Afghanistan, where she suffered a traumatic brain injury, and has had to relearn basics like walking, holding things and sleeping without spiraling into panic. James (Henry) is a mechanic she meets when her family’s truck needs work. Both Lynsey and James have lived in New Orleans all their lives; both have suffered familial tragedy in the city, which led Lynsey to run to the Army and James to stay put.

Joe Reid and Chris V. Feil, hosts of This Had Oscar Buzz, frequently talk about “friendship cinema,” which this very much is — a movie where the development of a non-romantic relationship is the heart of the story. Lynsey and James find in each other something Lynsey isn’t getting from her mother (Linda Emond), with whom she is staying while she tries to recuperate, and that James can’t get from his empty house. And both Lawrence and Henry are bringing so much unsaid to their performances, so much we aren’t specifically told about their characters but can understand from what they do with their eyes or the way they smile. Causeway is a calm surprise of a movie built on these standout roles. A- Available on Apple TV+.

The Wonder (R)

Florence Pugh, Toby Jones

Pugh is an English nurse hired to go to mid-1800s Ireland to report on the case of Anna O’Donnell (Kila Lord Cassidy), an 11-ish-year-old girl who appears to be healthy despite, as her family claims, not eating for more than four months. A group of men in this small, very religious village including the local doctor (Jones) and priest (Ciaran Hinds) have called in Nurse Elizabeth Wright (Pugh) and a nun, Sister Michael (Josie Walker), to watch Anna and report what they observe. Wright thinks this is all nonsense — as do a good number of the townsfolk — but Anna seems sincere in her belief that she is existing only on manna from heaven and has attracted quite a bit of attention for what people seem to believe is a kind of saintliness.

It doesn’t take a psychologist to make some guesses about what might be in the intersection of a “miracle” for a young girl deeply invested in the stories of female saints, denial of food by a tween and a recent family death. But the journey of Wright finding out what is behind this supernatural-seeming happening is nonetheless captivating. The men in the story have some personal gains to protect — the religious members of the town want a saint; the doctor thinks Anna might be the beginning of some scientific discovery (for him to make, of course); William Byrne (Tom Burke), a journalist from London who has his roots in this village, is chasing a story. Wright may have limited agency and some personal baggage but she is determined to figure out what’s really happening and, eventually, find a way to keep a girl from starving to death for dumb reasons. Pugh makes this investigation compelling. B Available on Netflix.

Armageddon Time (R)

Anthony Hopkins, Anne Hathaway.

This movie about Paul Graff (Banks Repeta), a tween from a Jewish family growing up in 1980 Queens, has a very novella, moment-in-time feel. Paul and public school classmate Johnny Davis (Jaylin Webb) are fast friends with a real George-and-Harold energy (for those who know their Captain Underpants), with Paul having a love of drawing and both of them disliking school and very much liking goofing off. The consequences of their goofiery are not equal, though — Johnny, one of the few Black kids at the school, seems to get punished harshly whether he’s done something or not. One particular misadventure has Johnny, who is cared for by a grandmother in poor health, dodging foster care officials while Paul is sent to his older brother’s private school to set him straight.

Surprisingly to Paul, the advice to his parents —Esther (Hathaway) and Irving (Jeremy Strong) — to send him to the tonier school came from Esther’s dad, Paul’s beloved grandpa (Anthony Hopkins). Having struggled against antisemitism throughout his life, Paul’s grandpa tells him to take the opportunities he gets. But he also urges Paul to stick up for the non-white kids that the students at his new private school disparage; be a mensch, he tells him.

The movie has its compelling moments, with characters like his mother, his often angry father and his grandfather often presented to us from his kid’s-eye-view of them. But the pieces of this movie don’t always hang together. Each of the adult characters, while well-performed, feel like they’re working at slightly different frequencies. Armageddon Time isn’t bad but it lacks a certain clarity. B Available for rent or purchase.

See How They Run (PG-13)

Saoirse Ronan, Sam Rockwell.

In 1950s London, Inspector Stoppard (Rockwell) and Constable Stalker (Ronan) investigate the murder of Leo Kopernick (Adian Brody), an American director tasked with turning Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap into a film. As in any English country house murder, there are an assortment of potential suspects with an assortment of connections to (and disagreements with) the victim. Eager and slightly star-struck Stalker and uninterested, world-weary Stoppard make an odd-couple pairing as they interview the various players — an ego-filled star (Harris Dickinson), an ego-filled writer (David Oyelowo), the play’s no-nonsense producer (Ruth Wilson), the potential producer of the movie (Reece Shearsmith) and his mistress (Pippa Bennett-Warner) — and try to figure which of the many reasons for wanting Leo dead actually moved someone to murder.

This movie has all the trappings — in how it’s shot, in the very Character-y characters, in its wry dialogue — of a buoyant murder mystery. But somehow it’s missing the bounce, the spark that would make it the kind of fun it seems to want to be. See How They Run seems to be aiming for “Knives Out but cozier” but instead it’s merely inoffensive and mildly pleasant. B- On VOD and HBO Max.

Our Missing Hearts, by Celeste Ng

Our Missing Hearts, by Celeste Ng (Penguin Press, 352 pages)

Celeste Ng’s latest novel is a depressing dive into a dystopian society, but I had high hopes for it when I found a handwritten note tucked inside the copy I picked up from the library that said, “It is so, so, so good!” I have to wonder if I would have liked it more if that note hadn’t been there, messing with my expectations.

In Our Missing Hearts, the government has passed PACT, the Preserving American Culture and Traditions Act, which has resulted in the banning of anything that might promote anti-Americanism and forces children of parents who don’t fully support the act to live with state-approved foster families. PACT targets Asians, particularly the Chinese; the American government blames the decade-old “Crisis” — an economic downturn marked by unemployment and poverty — on Chinese manipulation.

The story follows 12-year-old Bird, whose mother, Chinese-American poet Margaret Miu, left him and his father three years prior, after the line from her poem “Our Missing Hearts” was adopted as a slogan for anti-PACT activists. Worried that the government would take Bird away because she was perceived as a traitor, Margaret left first.

While the idea is good, its execution drags the story down. Ng (author of the adapted-for-Hulu novel Little Fires Everywhere) made some interesting writing choices in Our Missing Hearts. My biggest pet peeve is that she doesn’t use quotation marks at all, anywhere, even though the characters have dialogues. The decision struck me as somewhat arrogant, serving no purpose other than showing that Ng has become well-known enough as an author to take such liberties. But I realized I wasn’t being fair and should find out if there was a good reason for it, so, naturally, I asked Google. An article on BuzzFeed gave me the answer; Ng was asked about her style choices, specifically the lack of quotation marks. Her response:

“When I started writing the novel, I found that I was instinctively writing without quotation marks … but I had to think about why. (I’ll be honest, I usually hate when there are no quotation marks.) … I wanted the novel to feel slightly folkloric, almost dreamlike; for Bird, the events feel a little bit like stepping into a fairytale, one of the stories his mother told him when he was young. When you think of a story being told out loud, the way folktales often are … there’s a blurring between the person narrating, and the words of the story, and the things the characters say. So, removing the quotation marks helped create that effect for the reader.”

Maybe someone who is less of a stickler about grammatical rules would appreciate that artistic perspective, but strong dialogue can really move a plot along and give the characters personality, and this didn’t have any of that. In fact, my main issue with the novel is that I didn’t really care about the characters; they were flat, dull and one-dimensional. Ng switches perspective about halfway through the novel, from Bird’s point of view to Margaret’s, and while it helps explain her reasons for leaving more clearly, that emotion still isn’t there. A mother who has to leave her child should be devastated; what we see is her focusing instead on her anti-PACT mission. It’s noble, of course, but she seems almost robotic.

The character I actually liked the most was Sadie, who was removed from her home because her parents were working against PACT. At first we get to know from Bird’s memories of her; later he meets up with her on his journey to find his mother — which he seems to do only because she sent him a cryptic letter that he thinks is a request for him to find her, and not because he has a strong emotional desire to see her. He might, but the story focuses more on how he works through the clues his mother gave him to find her.

Dystopian novels are often bleak, but Our Missing Hearts was both bleak and boring. At times I didn’t even want to finish it, but it’s pretty short, and I promised to write a book review about it, so here we are.

While the concept was good, it might have been better as a short story, where the lack of character development would be less noticeable. As a novel, Our Missing Hearts is missing, well, heart. Maybe that’s the point. But the story would have been more powerful if there were more feeling behind it. C+

Album Reviews 22/12/01

Monster Magnet, Test Patterns: Vol. 1 (God Unknown Records)

Holy cats, a new Monster Magnet album, folks — there’s a jolt to the brain, isn’t it? They suddenly showed up from out of nowhere — a.k.a. Red Bank, New Jersey — working a noise rock angle that was, and I quote, “a cosmos away from the major-label, alternative rock boom that would suck the band into the shiny MTV world of the early to middle 90s.” In other words they were pretty useful, and antidote to all the Hawkwinds and Nirvana wannabes that made the 90s so useless, and this is more of the same, two versions of a 25-odd-minute-long fuzz-jam called “Tab.” The first version is a remix from 2021, pure Brian Jonestown Massacre meets Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky” but without any real musical purpose aside from being trippy, and then comes the original version, from a 1988 demo, which is virtually indistinguishable from the last 150-odd songs King Gizzard has put out this fiscal quarter. And here I’ll bet you’d thought these guys were gone forever, didn’t you? Weird, or what? B

The White Buffalo, Year Of The Dark Horse (Snakefarm Records)

When the pandemic put everyone in the entertainment business into stasis chambers, people did different things to stay sane. I know of two guys who picked up the drums just to stay sane, but this fellow here, Oregon-born Jake Smith, a guitarist by trade, picked up a synthesizer to make this LP, the follow-up to his 2020 full-length On The Widow’s Walk, more of a creative challenge as he “embarked on a voyage of discovery.” Well isn’t that special, and this isn’t a synth tour-de-force, but it does work in many ways, especially if you dug his early Americana-rock (he hates it when people call it that). The first tune, “Kingdom For A Fool,” begins with the same sleepy-but-buzzed-out vibe as Bread’s “Guitar Man,” but then it’s on, folks, Smith’s vocal tabling some unabashed rawk-melodics I wasn’t expecting at all. The sound is pretty full and rich as far as California-steeped radio-pop goes (he’s living in Cali these days, for the record), for example “C’mon Come Up Come Out” has a Red Hot Chili Peppers laziness to it, and if you like Beck, you’ll like a lot of this stuff. A

Playlist

• Land’s sakes, Jane, stop this crazy thing, we’re into the first week of December already, and there will be (I hope) a few new albums slated for release on Friday, Dec. 2. Ah, here’s a few of the little rascals, the first thing to which I’ll give a funny sideways look is (or course) a box set (because box sets and reissues make great holiday gifts for record collectors who already have everything they don’t need), specifically the big fat Sail On Sailor – 1972: Super Deluxe Box Set from the Beach Boys, who are celebrating their 60th year of making totally groovy music for Woodstock druggies or whatever their mission statement is. But now it’s time for today’s big reveal: I, multiple-award-winning music journo that I am, had no idea whatsoever that the Beach Boys were the ones who did that song in the first place. No, seriously, I’d always figured it had been some Chicago-wannabe 1970s band like Stealers Wheel, but no, it was the Beach Boys. I never really liked that song all that much, but you guys remember when it was playing over some scene in The Departed involving hams or whatever, and it was so edgy and cool? No? Well maybe you should go watch it again, just try to get past Jack Nicholson’s usual overacting and all that, it was a cool scene. And so on and so forth, this $120 heap of CDs and nonsense covers the Boys’ 1972 albums Carl And The Passions and Holland. Says here “This 6-CD set features a 48-page book with extensive liner notes, rare photos and more. The collection includes remastered versions of the original albums as well as outtakes and session highlights from the original Mount Vernon and Fairway EP from Holland, plus a previously unreleased concert from Carnegie Hall, 1972. Also included are dozens of studio and live additional tracks, sessions and alternate versions.” Yow, all I needed was a normal version of “Sail On Sailor,” but instead it’s basically a hilariously overpriced pu pu platter of mostly chicken fingers instead of the beef teriyaki strip I really only wanted in the first place. How do I shut this off?

• Los Angeles skate-punk veterans NOFX have been a thing since 1983, but they still know where to buy Day-Glo Hawaiian shirts, K-Mart cutoff shorts and all the other parts of their clown outfits, so here’s to those guys and their new album, titled Double Album! Wait a second, though, guys, wait a second, you’ll die when you hear this, are you ready? Right, it’s not actually a double album, just a single album, with 10 songs! The irony, I’m sorry, I’m really getting the vapors and need to lay down with my smelling salts, land’s sakes alive. So, whatever, appropriately enough, the test-drive single is called “Punk Rock Cliché,” and it’s pretty gosh darn cool if you don’t mind that the main riff is pretty much stolen from Thin Lizzy’s “Thunder and Lightning,” and the whole tune will be mistaken for a disposable Hoobastank filler song, but that’s the price of fame: help to invent a genre one year, and then watch as a bunch of 18-year-old scamps put you out of business. Seriously, how do you stop this crazy thing?

• St. Louis-based hip-hop producer/DJ/etc. Metro Boomin has only been around since 2009, but one of the first questions that comes up when you Google the guy is, “Is he retired yet?” Yes, that’s how ancient you are, I’m sorry for you. Heroes & Villains is his new record, and the beats are epic (but annoyingly trappy) in the single “Gods Don’t Bleed,” which features 21 Savage & Travis Scott. You might like it.

• We’ll end with Cleveland-bred techno-dude Galcher Lustwerk and his new 100% Galcher LP. “Put On” is a nice, hypnotic bit of mid-aughts deep house, unadventurous but perfect mall ambiance for chilling out to while your girlfriend tries on dresses she’ll regret buying.

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

Novelist as a Vocation, Haruki Murakami

Novelist as a Vocation, Haruki Murakami; translated by Philip Gabriel and Ted Goossen (Knopf, 224 pages)

The career of Haruki Murakami is one of the more mystifying legends in the literary world. He’s told the story many times: how, sitting in the stands at a baseball game, he suddenly had the thought that he could write a novel, despite not having written anything much more substantive than college papers. It was, as he calls it, an epiphany. The next day, he bought a fountain pen and paper and started writing a novel at his kitchen table after he got home from work in the evening. It took six months.

That was 35 years and 25 books ago.

Everyone now trying to do the same thing (or something similar) during November for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) should know, however, that even Murakami didn’t think much of that first book, Hear the Wind Sing, of which he now writes, “What I had written seemed to fulfill the formal requirements of a novel” yet “was rather boring, and as a whole, left me cold.”

But possessed of the idea that writing a novel was his destiny, Murakami did not stay discouraged even though he wasn’t satisfied with the first draft. As he tells in his new memoir Novelist as a Vocation, he swapped the pen and paper for a typewriter and started again in English instead of his native Japanese. That limited the vocabulary available to him and forced him to write more precisely — to create, as he says, “a creative rhythm distinctly my own.”

Ultimately he rewrote the entire novel in this style and found that writing “filled the spiritual void that had loomed with the approach of my thirtieth birthday.” A year later, the book was short-listed for a prize for new writers, which he won. And Murakami Inc. was off and running, despite the disdain of some of Japan’s literary elites, one of whom has called him a “con man.”

Novelist as a Vocation recounts many of the stories that Murakami has already told, including how he got started and why he became a long-distance runner who runs every day (and a marathon every year). It also explains, in some ways, the Murakami phenomenon — why he has enjoyed enduring popular success despite a writing style that is often plain-spoken. Along the way, he offers advice to aspiring novelists, although he doesn’t seem to have a high opinion of them as a species, writing, “The way I see it, people with brilliant minds are not particularly well suited to writing novels.”

He also says, “There are exceptions, of course, but from what I have seen, most novelists aren’t what one would call amiable and fair-minded. Neither are they what would normally be considered good role models: their dispositions tend to be idiosyncratic and their lifestyles and general behavior frankly odd.” He tells the story of the 1912 meeting of Marcel Proust and James Joyce, who barely spoke to each other at a dinner party in Paris. “Writers are basically an egoistic breed, proud and highly competitive. Put two of them in the same room and the results, more likely than not, will be a disappointment.” A certain arrogance also helps novelists who succeed, he suggests.

What novelists are, besides dogged, is accommodating. They are tolerant of other novelists because, as Murakami puts it, there’s always more room in the ring. Many people write one or two novels; few do what he does: churn them out consistently. Not that even Murakami makes his sole living from writing novels — he also has done English-to-Japanese translations for 30 years.

I have always been something of a Murakami skeptic. Even his celebrated memoir What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, which I’ve read twice, seems flat to me, its sentences as matter-of-fact as a grocery list. So it was interesting to read that the author himself does not pay heed to too much of his press. “… I am, when all is said and done, a very ordinary person,” he writes. “ … Not the type to stand out when I stroll around town, the type who’s always shown to the worst table at restaurants. I doubt that if I didn’t write novels anyone would ever have noticed me.”

Also, he writes of being removed from the literary elites, having failed to win a couple of other prizes that he was shortlisted for early in his career. This has made him question the value of any prize, “from the Oscars to the Nobel.” The most important thing to have is good readers, not the acclaim of one’s peers, he says. (It’s worth noting, though, that Murakami also acknowledges that his career as a novelist might have fizzled if he hadn’t won the Gunzo Prize for his first effort.)

In short essays about his life and the craft, he goes on to muse about the importance of originality (and the difficulty of having an original style be accepted, whether in writing, painting or music); the mechanics of writing (he doesn’t work on novels unless “the desire to write is overwhelming” and instead does more mundane tasks, like translation, until that occurs); and why a scene from the movie E.T. is an apt metaphor for novelists who don’t have a lot of life experience. (Short version, you have to assemble a transmitter with an odd assortment of junk stored in the garage.)

Murakami estimates that 5 percent “of all people are active readers of literature” but those 5 percent are ardent, he says. “As long as one in twenty is like us, I refuse to get overly worried about the future of the novel and the written word.”

Perhaps the most fascinating line in Novelist as a Vocation is this: “I don’t make promises, so I don’t have deadlines. As a result, writer’s block and I are strangers to each other.” So many writers convince themselves that they need deadlines to motivate them to work, but Murakami suggests that creativity flows best without this pressure. He also doesn’t seem to put a lot of pressure on himself as far as output goes, writing only about 1,600 words a day when he’s working on a novel, with a hard stop after 10 pages, even if he wants to write more.

Interestingly, this memoir was released in Japan in 2015 and took seven years and two translators to make it to the U.S., just in time to help NaNoWriMo participants who need a jolt of adrenaline to power through. It serves that purpose well, and is also a surprisingly pleasurable read for anyone trying to understand the magic of Murakami more broadly. B+

Album Reviews 22/11/24

Soen, Atlantis (Silver Lining Music)

With Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s traditional holiday tour coming soon, our thoughts turn of course not to Santa Claus and all that stuff but instead to progressive metal bands, like this Swedish one, which first hit the scene in 2004 as a “supergroup” consisting of former Opeth drummer Martin Lopez, ex-Testament bassist Steve Di Giorgio, Willowtree singer Joel Ekelöf and some dude named Joakim Platbarzdis on guitar. I don’t know if it’s still considered a supergroup, but they’re good, if you like epic prog-metal and whatnot, especially live albums from same, which is what this is. I don’t know how “live” this album actually is; if I’m reading this right, they just re-rubbed a bunch of their po-faced old stuff, opening the set with “Antagonist,” which is a lot more Scorpions than it is Megadeth. There’s a version of Slipknot’s “Snuff” added for variety, but most of the time it’s a mixture of different but usually depressing sci-fi-convention ambience. Is what it is. B+

Louis Armstrong, The Standard Oil Sessions (Dot Time Records)

Any list of the greatest jazz musicians of all time would automatically include Louis Armstrong, Jack Teagarden and Earl “Fatha” Hines. From 1948 through 1951, those three legends played as Louis Armstrong and His All Stars. Unfortunately they didn’t make many studio recordings, and most of the live recordings that have survived are in really bad shape. But on Jan. 20, 1950, Armstrong, Hines and Teagarden appeared in a San Francisco recording studio to record a number of songs for Standard Oil’s “Musical Map of America” program. Teagarden got to do his signature “Basin Street Blues” while Hines performed a show-stopping version of his “Boogie Woogie on St. Louis Blues.” But it was Armstrong who was in the spotlight throughout, in peak form vocally and especially on the trumpet, improvising completely different solos on “Muskrat Ramble,” “Panama,” “Struttin’ with Some Barbecue” and other signature numbers. “Classic” would almost be an insult; this is timeless stuff. A+

Playlist

• Great, here come the holidays, which means there’ll be barely anything for me to write about here in a couple of weeks, in this multiple award-winning column. But for now I am safe, because look at all these albums that you will be able to buy at Walmart or 7-Eleven or Petsmart, you know, anyplace that still sells albums! Look gang, can you even believe all these — oops, wait a minute, it’s Black Friday this week, and the next general-release date for albums is Nov. 25, so there’s no time to put out any new albums in time for the holidays, I’m in some hot water now, just great, holy catfish! Well, we’ll have to do something here, and you probably don’t want to hear about all the ins and outs of my last medical exam, so let’s ’ave a look at the new album by Stormzy, titled This Is What I Mean, coming out this Friday! This dude’s real name is Michael Ebenezer Kwadjo Omari Owuo Jr., and he is a British rapper, singer and songwriter who gained attention on the U.K. underground music scene through his Wicked Skengman series of freestyles over classic grime beats. Like everything else that’s grime-based, it was cool stuff, but what about this new record? I don’t know, let’s find out, shall we? The teaser single, “Hide & Seek,” is high-class stuff, kind of a cross between Seal and Drake, but with a humble, eminently British attitude that doesn’t rely on controversy or dissing someone else. Yes, folks, in other words it is doomed to eventual failure just because it’s good and decent and nice, you know how this goes by now.

• Marcus Paquin is a record producer/writer/multi-instrumentalist who has worked with Arcade Fire, The National, Stars, Raine Maida, Local Natives, basically any Canadian indie band that’s gotten on my nerves over the last 12 years. His new album is Our Love, and the single, “The Way Forward,” is likable enough, fronting your basic Bon Iver/Sigur Ros chill-tech-indie contrivances, but it’s OK. His vocals have a weird but not entirely unapproachable effect added in order to make them more awkward and anti-edgy, the sort of angle we’ve heard a million times by now, but there is indeed some epic-ness once you get to the chorus, where the vocal sound remains weird but actually works within the scheme of it. I dunno, an overproduced Gorillaz ballad would be similar; it’s not wildly addictive but a lot better than the recent things I’ve heard in this genre.

• Wait, ermagerd, looky over there, my little rascals, it’s an album on which we can just go to town and laugh our little tuchuses off, and bonus, it’s a holiday album! It’s 80-year-old pop-crooner Cliff Richard, who was once the most dreaded name in “rock ’n’ roll,” basically about as counter-culture as Lawrence Welk! Christmas With Cliff, his first holiday-themed album in 19 years, features 10 covers done by the only artist in the world to achieve Top 5 albums in eight consecutive decades! Includes classics like “Sleigh Ride,” “Joy to the World,” “Blue Christmas” and whatnot, as well as three original songs.

• We’ll finish this off and get to some serious drinking by talking about Glasgow-based goth-glam sextet Walt Disco and their new EP, Always Sickening, won’t that be terrific? There’s a cover of Stephanie Mills’ 1980 disco hit “Never Knew Love Like This Before,” but it’s super slow and weird, you’ll probably be like “I hate this,” just letting you know ahead of time. And there we are.

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

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