Reviews of stuff I bought last Tuesday.

Having been a bit frustrated at my inability to get myself to stick to the plan of reviewing a new album a week just to get the old juices going again, I hereby present a review of the first of three albums I bought last Tuesday.

First up, Man Man's Life Fantastic.

There appear to be two ways to look at Man Man's fourth album.

The first is to take Life Fantastic on its own individual and excellent merits, sealed away from the rest of the world (and it's predecessors) in an insular vacuum. The second is to liken it to your friend for whom the renaissance fair never ends and you're one, "Aye, m'lord," away from swearing off the all-night mead sessions.

Not that there aren't new tricks. Opener Knuckle Down chugs along fantastically courtesy of the 8-bit grit of its fuzzed-out synth bass underpinning.

Old tricks sail by here and there, some more welcome than others. It's ridiculously difficult to not chant "Mustache, mustache," when you hit the rhythm rocks at the heart of of Haute Tropique, and the prog interlude backloaded in Shameless (which might be the album's best track) also harkens back to Six Demon Bag.

Eel Bros. is just a little transitional throwaway bit of fun, but its attempt to fuse Nintendo phrasings with late '90s Beck tropical dance fever makes one kind of want to see Man Man dedicate a whole track to similar ideas.

The album closes on two strong cuts: the title track and Oh, La Brea. Life Fantastic swoons deliriously in tightening circles leading to a cacophonous center that's actually kind of surprising in just how tuff it is.

Oh, La Brea works a bit differently. It operates somewhere in the neighborhood of a medley of their various preferred pastiches, but incredibly satisfyingly.

In conjunction with the previous track, it does beg the rather awkward question of when will frontman Honus Honus pull a Nick Cave and, while recognizing his supporting players as The World's Most Enabling Band, take the spotlight unto himself and attempt to flourish as a Named Songwriter Guy as opposed to basking in the nurturing safety of being the Main Guy In a Quirky Fringe Band.

At the very minimum, Life Fantastic is good . To those new to the fold, it may even be their best. But four albums in, Man Man are less trailblazers than minstrels making merry in their very own crop circle.

However, it's a very nice crop circle, and the mead is very nice, especially after a few cups, and maybe entirely worth putting up with a few more thees and thous.

Dream #1

So not my first dream, and thankfully not a Frist dream.

But I figgered I might as well document them on the rare occasion that they occur.

This is from last night, so it's had most of the day to alternate between coming together and falling apart entirely.

Anyhow. I'm out with a dog (maybe Dagny, maybe not a dog at all, but at least another friendly, playful entity) on a beach between the sea and some mighty tall cliffs. It's definitely night, but a waxful-if-not-full moon is doing its thing, and I've got my Maglite to boot.

Why am I there? I think I was meeting up with a party maybe? Not sure. So there I am, on a sandy beach that's maybe 15o yards from rocky, sheer cliffs to crashing surfs, looking for something, playing my flashlight along whatever shrubs or rock piles there might be.

I knew the specifics of the next part when I woke up this morning, but have since forgotten them. Something to the effect of finding a lost child. I didn't return him to anyone, and I don't remember the kid speaking at all, but I kind of played the flashlight back in the direction I'd come from and said, "That way." The boy was seemingly grateful and ran off where I'd pointed.

Some time passes. Maybe a night, maybe a week. I don't know.

I'm on a similar stretch of beach, doing kind of the same thing, but I know that I'm making my way towards the kid's parents' house for a reward or recognition or something. It's a big, ridiculous Spanish villa-type thing with white walls and red tile roofs and more split levels than anyone would ever want.

It's still night, or perhaps night again, but I have no sidekick.

I get there.

Not really sure what's going to happen or supposed to happen next, but I decide to sneak off to the bathroom before anything big happens. I walk down a long hallway that seems to be kind of rickety, although I could never tell you why. I find the bathroom and go in.

The toilet is next to a window. I'm pissing in the toilet, trying to be quiet so they don't know I'm not wherever I'm supposed to be. It's taking forever. I look out the window. It's not night anymore, or at least not out the window, which overlooks a staggering, rocky, cliffy stairstepped waterfall leading to a tropical tree-laden lagoon. I'm still pissing, and the stream seems to get louder and more powerful.
The bathroom begins to shake.

The wall with the window shears off from the house and falls down onto the first step and splinters shoot everywhere. I take a step back towards the hallway, still pissing.

The toilet is next to go down the cliff, and I remember seeing it hit a rock not too far below and bounce into the lagoon far below with a splash. I pissed in it until it would have come undone from the plumbing, had it been attached to any.

The rest of the bathroom, myself included, went next.

I tried to mirror the trajectory of the toilet but miscalculated. I sensed the household was watching me and that a great tragedy was unfolding. I hit the first step of rocks hard but bounced high, far higher than I had originally fallen and arc up and over into a loose sort of compost heap next to the lagoon, and that impact siphons off enough excess kinetic energy that I only bounce about ten feet up and over into inexplicably dry soil.

I knew that I'd hit hard and was fucked up, but also that I was pretty badass for having survived the fall I did. The frames to my eyeglasses were straight ahead of me, temples even with the bridge, but the lenses were gone. I staggered to my feet, limped a step and smiled.

We flash forward some time. I'm well-dressed, maybe in a suit, probably wearing sunglasses, and kind of too warm. I'm standing in some sort of park with palm trees, maybe in front of a spendy Florida hotel or something. Someone (again, unsure of who, but certainly a friendly) is chatting with me. It feels like a social debriefing following a lengthy hospital stay.

Just as I'm reiterating how great I feel and how wonderful it is to be alive, I notice one of my hands has had a couple knuckles amputated and the stumps seem kind of flattened and burned.

This does not bother me. I rationalize it as being a small price to pay for surviving such a tremendous fall. I must have done it aloud, as my compatriot warns me that if my hand is surprising to me, then I should maybe or maybe not look at my face.

I don't know that I ever find a mirror to look into, but I remember looking for one. I know that I did find out that, years ago, I had interviewed for the Volante a man who had fallen down a bouncy cliff from a bathroom in a strikingly similar fashion to myself.

I took note of the man's forgettable name and set out to track him down.

Things get hazy again, but I find him at the racetrack and am about to ask him some questions about what happened when I am waylaid by a college-aged reporter who wants to ask me questions about falling down a bouncy mountain.

Helloooo, old shit!

Just stumbled across some unreleased Brainiac songs that I haven't heard since I first downloaded music via free university-provided dial-up.

They're not great, and kind of obnoxious because the mixes I got this time are all inexplicably hard-panned to the right channel (yes, I am on headphones, and yes, the plug is seated fully), but holy nostalgia for France. Wow.

Baby steps.

Time Out for Relevance

Where are all the gun-toting Second Amendment champions when the gun-toting nutjobs come out?

Don't get used to it...

This is just something to do while I wait for the coffee to be done.

The coffee is just something to do while I wait to smoke.

The Pall Mall is something I do while I wait for Maureen to get home,

at which point I will run inside and act like I've been cleaning all afternoon.

Review of Jonah Knight's Ghosts Don't Disappear

Full disclosure: 13 years ago, Jonah played the Ziggens' Have a Bitchin' Summer over KAOR's waves for me as a demonstration of how cool it is to be a college radio jock. He may or may not have had a tape out roughly the same time that I kinda dug (he did).

Over the 6 songs and 22 minutes that make up his latest EP, Ghosts Don't Disappear, Frederick, MD musician Jonah Knight manages to sound both earnest and jaded, which is a bit of a neat trick. His storytelling voice is strong, while his singing voice evinces nostalgia for long-since-recovered-from pain.

On Far, he keeps mostly to a robustly authoritative whisper, only turning on the yearn-faucet for the swelling chorus. Going into the final third of the same song, Knight adds some desperate exasperation to the line, “And I will haunt you, my love/ until we both are dust,” that provides a satisfying emphasis despite feeling a bit menacing compared to the rest of the song.

The ghost/haunting pastiche is represented throughout, though never overbearingly. While a song may mention either theme word explicitly, it's just as likely the apparition in question is simply an evocative memory more powerful than expected.

Musically, Knight's guitar playing is well beyond competent, but it never threatens to steal the spotlight from the stories, keeping the tension taut and focused. His supporting cast augment his arrangements, adding beauty but no bloat.

The Window Frames (article-noun-verb, not article-adjective-noun) offers ruminations on the portal through which the inside and the outside examine each other.

In Someday We'll All Be Ghosts,he describes a deceased ship captain as follows: “He lived life on the ocean/ now he lives death in the ground.” Normally, I resent usage of the oft-lazy trick of writing something obvious but writing it like a moron to make it seem more pithy, but here Knight uses it to great effect, setting up compelling imagery of the geographies that inspired him.

On his website (jonahofthesea.com), Knight expresses a frustration with describing his music to others. People have compared him to a litany of acoustic rock/folk types that I could agree with only tenuously. While, yes, in essence, he is technically just another dude with an acoustic guitar, his methodology is entirely different. He doesn't indulge in the pedantic placeholder strumming so many, many dudes with acoustics rely on. He doesn't make the Springsteen face while playing (I hope).

Rather, there's a cool restraint to these songs that does set him aside from would-be genre peers. His point of view tends to be that of a reliable narrator with varying degrees of personal involvement, which leads to something of a detached perspective. Presumably owing to his theatre background, he's got the language to tell the stories he wants to, and the stories are the key.

Now as far as what his music reminds me of exactly , I might say Harry Chapin and then immediately regret it. Chapin's not at all what I think I mean, but that impulse does suggest that Knight has more in common with the singer/songwriters of generations past than he does with the contemporary batch.

Every now and again, a phrase will roll off Knight's tongue that'll prompt me to think of Joe Genaro. Not to say these songs sound like the Dead Milkmen; they don't. But his voice has a wit and a lilt to it that hints at his quirkier, more playful side not shown here.

The only song-to-song comparison I'll make is, again, not perfect and doesn't reflect the guts of the song, but The Problem With Math does shop at the same suit store as Yo La Tengo's Our Way To Fall. This is not a bad thing. I like ethereally warbling organs and whispered recountings of something or another.

Overall, this is an above-average collection of songs that exists on the fringes of a genre I absolutely detest. Knight puts compelling and quality songwriting before instrumental wankery, and establishing and maintaining moods over chart-friendly singalongability. For that, I forgive him his choice of tools in trade, and add commendation. He's more than just a dude with an acoustic.

Also, here's a thinger that ought give you an idea or two what the hell I just talked about for 700 words.

Progressive volume increases...

I am not beholden. I've been laid off for a month and a half. I can do what I please.

It's S.O.P. for me to behave as though the bracketing statements of the verbal triptych above are true, but that centerpiece has been in effect for about six weeks now.

Time to do something, right?

Yeah, getting there.

Bear with me.

j.