chthonic [2021)

So Pauly Deathwish comes out with a Sonic Youth cover.

“Schizophrenia”.

Sounds like Sade and Yoshimi-era Lips.

Like mental illness is no big deal.

Strange.

Almost bossa nova.

Like an elevator music rendition.

I dig it, though.

Bachelor pad music for hipsters.

Sounds like the chord progression is totally different.

This bloke gonna be locked up with Stravinsky in Boston.

Kinda Herbie Hancock doing Nirvana.

William Shatner.

But then that fucking piano comes in.

Like “Time” from Aladdin Sane.

Fucking hell.

Beautiful and fucked up.

Ratchet up Conlon Nancarrow.

Something Charlie Parker about this.

Impossible arpeggiator.

Talking the Kim Gordon lines.

Muted.

Lou Reed.

Leonard Cohen.

This is good shit.

Gets all ’80s.

Public Image.

Finally Thurston and Ranaldo drop in.

Shit gets real.

The harmonies on this song are insane.

Like Messiaen.

Definitely fits the scordatura.

Something Brian Wilson about this progression too.

Like fuzzed-out Smile.

My fiancee dumped me 12 days ago without even telling me why.

Four year relationship gone.

NEXT SONG!

Suzanne Ciani.

Real guitar?

Sounds a little Built to Spill.

Very circumspect.

Great harmonies again.

This dude didn’t cheat his Fux.

Creeping automation.

Ambient.

What will it do?

Some sad shit like Godspeed.

Silver Mt. Zion.

Hats get going.

In a Silent Way.

Bass drum drops in.

It is obvious Pauly loves “A New Career in a New Town”.

This vibe resurfaces in many of his songs.

But THIS song!

Very “Mayonaise” by Smashing Pumpkins.

Like Glenn Branca with a better childhood.

A long instrumental.

Slow, simmering fire.

Anger.

Sadness.

Mixed together.

Catharsis.

SLOW-LY building.

Arpeggiator about to get wild again.

Mothersbaugh.

Fuzz bass drops in.

Soft Bulletin.

Wow.

What a guitar tone!

Sounds like a fucking harmonica.

Great lo-fi…Devendra Banhart vibe.

But this is straight Velvet Underground.

BRMC.

An instrumental with ooohs and ahhhs.

Bottom drops out.

Drums chugging away like Primal Scream.

Fucking glockenspiel!

A’ight, mate.

Interesting touch, there.

Little bit Mercury Rev.

See You on the Other Side.

Chugging away.

Guitars enjoying themselves.

Ghost of Sterling Morrison.

Tune called “Catharsiss” [sic].

Must be some weird Godard reference.

And the last song of this maxi.

Similar start as track 2.

Strange flange/phase Shepard scale weirdness.

Truly chilled-out, mellow bathtub guitar.

Like Yo La Tengo.

Those fucking pricks.

Why did they block Pauly Deathwish on Twitter?

That’s uncalled for.

Bloke’s just a struggling musician.

But they are holier than thou.

Well, Pauly’s played Maxwell’s in Hoboken too.

YLT never hit a vibe this good except on “Pablo and Andrea”.

Fucking unblock Pauly Deathwish, you losers.

Twitter.

Cymbals Eat Guitars vibe.

Very chilled out.

A little “All Cats Are Grey” feel.

Good guitar noodling.

In a Verlaine/Lloyd way.

Why did my fiancee dump me?

She won’t even tell me why.

12 days ago.

The day before thanksgiving.

Drums kick in.

Good beat.

MBV would have gone for this.

Similar guitar underneath.

A little J. Mascis.

Living with my parents.

Are you in therapy?

Haha.

FUCK THAT.

Yes, I review my own albums.

Because no one else will review them.

And because I have put out 16 albums in one year.

I don’t have time for people to catch on.

I worked hard on this shit.

I’m the same age Alan Vega when he started.

About to be 45.

Old as fuck.

So, I have a lot in common with Pauly Deathwish.

I feel his pain.

His fiancee dumped him too.

12 days ago as well.

She also didn’t tell him why.

She just started ignoring him like he was some piece of shit.

So I feel totally justified in helping Pauly out with this review.

To help get his music a wider audience.

Young Heart Attack feedback.

Radiohead clank.

“Creep”.

Back to the Badalamenti synths.

She just turned off her heart.

Maybe she doesn’t realize how much she is hurting me.

But I think she’s just a vindictive bitch.

-PD

MZFPK [2021)

Breakfast cereal video game.

Pauly Deathwish’s 3rd album.

I am behind.

I can’t keep up with this guy.

Out of the gates like Flaming Lips.

30,000 feel of despair.

The gash.

Right into Isao Tomita.

Doing Debussy.

Marching.

Martial.

Fantastic noises.

Like first Stereolab album.

Here Come the Warm Jets.

Cheyenne Mountain jams.

I can no longer see what I’m typing.

  • What if I type in white?  Ahh, yes.  That does the trick.  But it ruins my style.  Louis-Ferdinand would not be happy.  Totally Air.  Pocket Symphony.  Who is Kevin?  Shields?  Ayers?  Fairlight.  Synth clouds.  Rich chords.  Very sophisticated harmonies and arrangements.  Cornelius from Japan.  This sounds very modern.  OH FUCK!  Groove is in the motherfucking heart.  Vogue!  So on track two, we are straight up on a catwalk.  But it could be Alan Vega or Martin Rev.  Kinda Sun City Girls.  Zoviet France.  Fridmann never gets this crazy with bass.  Wayne is driving it weirder.  This was, from what I hear, done with ZERO budget.  Is this a dance album?  First you have poetry.  Then you are prose.  Amateurs.  Into Odelay.  That was a good drum break.  The Strokes.  Fuzzy vocals.  Paliament/Funkadelic.  Sly Stone!  Later Stereolab.  Tim Gane processing.  Counter melody!  For fuck’s sake.  Somebody listen to this bloke.  Whoa.  What is up with this chorus?  Roland Kirk?  Like in Switzerland?  Definitely hitting some Os Mutantes twee.  Lo-fi as fuck.  Great Godard tongue in cheek.  Apparently about Neil Young and Rick James being in a band together when they were young and still in Canada.  Yonge Street?  Beats.  Drake needs to hear this.  Bit crusher lisp.  Spiritualized at the grocery store.  Swipe barcode.  Song peaks at end.  Masterful mix.  A true climax.  Savage mastering on every album.  Whole mix jumps.  It works.  Needle skipping.  American Supreme.  Claustrophobic.  COVID.  Sad.  Scared.  Apocalyptic.  The concept of the gaze in cinema.  Bass drops in.  Feel it in your sex organs.  A sexy song.  “Cobra Strike”.  This is unequivocally a dance album.  EDM all up in here.  Lots of panning.  Spliff it.  Micro gestures.  Pandemic planning.  How long will it last?  Soul-crushing.  Zombie metaphor.  Shaun of the Dead.  Masterpiece.  Beatle drums.  First Velvets album.  Rat trails.  “Black Angel’s Death Song”.  “The New Pollution”.  Dr. No.  Walther PPK.  What does this kid know?  He can’t possibly know, can he?  Pure phase.  Visconti.  Lanois.  Acid jazz.  Nick Cave.  Montage, mon beau souci.  Flaming Lips.  Jeff Tweedy drawl.  Jesus and Mary Chain team up with The Cure.  Disintegration.  Heartbreak here.  Who broke his heart?  Bleeps and bloops.  Robot noises.  Heartbeeps.  Jazz funk ’70s experimental upright.  Great lyrics.  Superimposition.  Steenbeck!  Fucking great lyrics on “Snip Snip”.  Oh, damn.  Glockenspiel at just the right time!  Icy.  Air.  Virgin suicides.  Dazed and confused.  Blonde.  Braids.  Like glazed bread.  German.  Texas.  Floating world.  Old world.  No one to smoke a doobie with and stare up at green trees.  No tits.  What is wrong with this world?  Rambo.  Fort Bragg.  Delta.  Boykin.  Intelligence Support Activity.  Send me.  George Crumb.  Black angels.  Jungle echoes.  4thPOG.  Ghosts.  PSYWAR op.  Make it loud.  Romeo foxtrot.  Shall we dance?  Charlie don’t surf.  Death on the dance floor.  Public Image Ltd.  Modes of limited transposition.  Messiaen.  Primal Scream.  Standing with Johnny Rotten.  #Trump2021 .  But this is more about big tits.  Giant opals.  Garth Hudson.  Telegraph.  Total loss.  Persona non grata.  Window still missing.  Swastika eyes.  Paul Weller.  XTRMNTR.  Shoot speed.  Kill light.  Eyes owned 2020.  The ugly had a chance.  Masks work…if you’re ugly and need to get laid.  Back with another block rocking’ beat.  Private psychedelic reel.  War metaphor.  Is this about election?  No.  Too early.  Look at liner notes.  Living in COVID times was like a world war.  War just beginning?  Got my pina colada.  Fuck it!  Arizona.  Living boldly.  Masks have lost.  Two weeks.  Could have been a contender.  Circuit bending.  Talking about big titty schizophrenic.  All footwork ruined.  Toys.  Falling apart gremlin workmanship.  Awkward line about Thora Birch.  Explicit warnings a little lazy.  Getting a bit Lenny Bruce up in here.  Russ Meyer.  Second line.  Double time.  Crazy drums.  Smooth as Sade.  Tambourine is the star.   One organic element.  Wrote a song.  She didn’t care.  Wrote her 200 songs.  She didn’t care.  One has zero plays globally.  She never bothered listening to it.  Some things not meant to be.  Liberals and conservatives.  Go and create.  Lobster.  Work wasn’t.  Bought her every flower imaginable.  Thousands of dollars on flowers.  Yoshimi laser warfare.  A piano not standard.  Some Tori Amos bullshit.  Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli.  Only the finest pianos.  Internationally famous.  Neither deserve it.  Pulled the plug at the wrong time.  Would he have still kept the same track listing?  Maybe so.  Heartbreak to rehash.  Goes by quick.  Good drum programming.  James Bond future theme.  Brian Wilson.  Phil Spector.  Absolute Nigel Godrich.  Cinematic.  The album that never was.  But this one is worldwide, motherfuckers.  Third this summer.  And a fourth already out.  I can hardly keep up.  I need to review movies.  Doesn’t Pauly Deathwish know I don’t have time for Galaga?  Falling apart.  Short-circuit.  Charlotte Gainsbourg.  Flashback to Bucolic.  
  • -PD

Vi är bäst! [2013)

IF you want to see a bogus, bollocks feminist film, watch Free the Nipple.

But if you want to see the real thing…a really empowering, touching story, then check out We Are the Best!

IT’s in Swedish.

So you’ll have to use your brain.

And your eyes.

Unless you speak Swedish.

But it will be well worth your time.

Vi är bäst! isn’t trite acting from a bunch of pseudo-provocateurs who just want to take their shirts off.

Nej.

This is the story of three 13-year-old girls.

None of them fit in.

Everyone tells them they’re ugly.

One of them is ostracized for being a Christian.

[now THAT’S punk!]

But it’s the story of three girls who come together and do the greatest thing possible:  form a band.

Music!!!

And let me just say this:  the acting is fucking fantastic!

Mira Barkhammer plays Bobo.

For me, she is the star of the film.

She is the outcast of the outcasts.

No make up.

No cool haircut.

She’s searching for her identity.

But she’s so smart.  So truly unique!

She wears these little wire-rim glasses.

From one perspective, this film is her search for what’s behind the mirror.

Director Lukas Moodysson made a masterpiece here.

Bobo…

The name…

I think of Boris Diaw.

The whole scenario is aw-kward.

But so beautifully so!

And yet Bobo is not perfect.

Far from it.

It’s a team effort.

And teams, especially when they are ad hoc and organic, are inherently dysfunctional.

The actress who puts the dys in dysfunction here is Mira Grosin.

But she too is so wonderful in this film!

She is the inspiration.

The first one out on the limb.

The rebel.

The loudmouth.

She inspires her other two bandmates to fly their freak flags high.

But the most enigmatic is Liv LeMoyne:  the Christian.

Director Moodysson is so deft in his handling of this dynamic.

LeMoyne’s character [Hedvig] has long, beautiful blond hair.

[At this point it is appropriate to address a strange form of class relations in Sweden:  hair color.]

When I used to think of Sweden (which I did rarely), I would imagine everyone as a blond.

Perhaps the American vision of Sweden is a socialist paradise of blond bikini models.

At the very least, blondness seems to be the defining characteristic in the American popular imagination regarding Sweden (as far as I can tell).

This isn’t a scientific study, you understand…

But it is important to point this out.

The snottiest (in the stuck up, snobbish sense) characters in this film are mostly blonds.

The little girls who call Bobo and Klara [Grosin] ugly.

It is really heartbreaking.

These two BRUNETTE girls endure such humiliation throughout this film.

And so it’s no wonder that they want to start a PUNK BAND!

But they can’t play.

Like, not at all…

Their first halting efforts are in the vein of The Shaggs.

No, worse.

And that’s where the Christian comes in.

Hedvig is an accomplished classical guitarist.

It is, indeed, much like the story of Garth Hudson’s joining The Band.

Lessons.

So to speak.

Bobo and Klara are astounded at Hedvig’s talent.

They lament that they’ll never be as good as their gifted new friend.

But Hedvig is all encouragement.

It is [pardon the expression] a match made in heaven.

And so three misfits (for different reasons) band together (literally) and take on the cock rock ridiculousness of bullies like youth-center-rehearsal-room-“stars” Iron Fist.

The message is astounding.

I haven’t seen a film which does such honor to the idea of feminism since 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.

But there’s no ulterior motive here.

This isn’t a George Soros production.

This is the real thing.

Just three young people (who happen to be female) wanting to make some noise in their world.

And we see how beautiful punk music is.

IT’s a catharsis.

Like Sonic Youth.

And we remember the true geniuses of the genre (like my hero, the late Alan Vega).

But we also remember the maxim:  “three chords and the truth”.

Hedvig’s got the chords.

[Ah…harmony!  What a concept!!!]

But Klara has the attitude.

And Bobo has the intellect.

They learn from each other.

“Here.  Stay on this note.  Good.  Now move to this note.”

“Punk is about rebellion.  It’s not about the school talent show.  We’ve got to keep going.  It’s a fight.”

“You really need to change your hair.  Do something fun!  Express yourself!  Cut loose!”

Those are my translations of action, not dialogue.

But I can’t stress enough how great these three actresses are in this film.

Mira Barkhammer in particular is a prodigy.

But, as in the story, the trio is inseparable.

And for this kind of cohesion, we have but one place to look in thanks:  the auteur.

-PD