I know I said Failures and Gary Wilson, but I feel like I gotta do some Halloween shit/month-end wrap-up shit. I can't really top last year's Halloweenr, but how about Xela's "The Illuminated" or Aethenor? I'm almost positive I mentioned the Xela tape before and then I just linked to a page that had a comment section where someone linked to a download. Pretty chintzy, so here's the whole thing, side A and side B. I don't think I ever mentioned Aethenor. I think I was actually going to save it for a scary music post. I guess I should say these are both good if you want "extended noise inside a cabin where you're going to die at the hands of a weird guy". Picking out songs that are supposed to be scary is kind of dorky, though. Maybe something like "Ghost Walk" or "Walking On My Grave" would be better? All I've been into lately is Earth (old and new-ish) or Shop Assistants or Black Tambourine. Not really horrifying, but good for cold drives and snow showers before it turns 60 degrees again. Finding out that I was laying on the couch while reunited Harriet The Spy was playing "Retarding Dimensionally" in Ohio was kind of horrifying, though. Somebody please do one of those "play that whole album" shows with them doing Unfuckwithable, PLEASE. It'll only take 20 minutes and I'll get to sing along to "I tried real hard to give myself a cold by getting my hair all wet/it never worked/it never even parted my hair down the middle" and "I'll be waiting in the parking lot with a fistful of food". I have so much to do--zines, mailing things, blowing up on youtube, hanging out with Ixor--and I already had a reasonable amount of time to do it. Oh well. Have a good Ghoul's Night Out! Your Fiend, Matt.

PS--"Animal Imagination"

You may look cute, but you puke all over it.
So yeah, Kurt Vile. Probably the biggest reason I got way into him is that he's like a guy you went to school with who was mostly quiet but always said funny shit and could draw really well, who never seemed bothered by anything and always knew exactly what was going on. Maybe I got that more from the interview he did with the guy from Clockcleaner or the interview some guy did with him that was all text messages, but I think it comes through in the music, too. He's that guy doing Leonard Cohen and The Church and Springsteen and Eno, recording weird loops and songs that are spacey and funny (but not jokey) in his room, and then hanging out later. It was what I needed to hear, especially during a summer that was kind of horrendous. Parts of it were good--the train ride down to see Harvey Milk, hanging out with Amy at her apartment before the show, the week that Andrew and Sara were here, seeing Sex Vid and Monotonix in one day. But mostly it was just a big hollow feeling and watching things go retarded. At a certain point I said "Fuck, I gotta do something", and started working on the zine that I've since been real lazy about, but is still happening and is still going to be pretty alright. And when I wasn't doing that, I went out driving during the record gas price bullshit and listened to Constant Hitmaker in between Shuggie Otis records and Dylan bootlegs, tried to find that lunar eclipse or whatever it was, looked at the trees and big open fields and got fucking lost. What else can you do when shit sucks and nobody's around, but it's really nice outside? Listen to a guy who can play like Elliott Smith and says "I got a trumpet, I know where to dump it".

Kurt Vile - "Space Forklift"
Kurt Vile - "Don't Get Cute"
Kurt Vile - "Classic Rock In Spring/Freeway In Mind"

I finally got real crazy about the Ai Aso/Wata She's So Heavy split, just in the last week. I got it months and months ago during my big Michio Kurihara phase, when I was listening to his Sunset Notes record and the Boris/Michio Rainbow record all the time, but I was lagging on it for whatever reason. Crazy shit, especially since Ai Aso sings on the best shit on Sunset Notes (I've listened to "The Wind's Twelve Quarters" so many times and I'm still not sick of it), and the line-up on Wata's song is basically Boris with Michio, maybe even from the Rainbow sessions, but I'm not totally sure. Not to mention the 7" comes with a huge booklet of photos of Ai Aso and Wata looking really pretty. Who's not going to buy this, even though it's kind of expensive? And the songs, holy shit. Ai covers King Crimson and does it spare with big drums and organ and guitar, and it's perfect. Wata covers Masashi Kitamura, who I don't know anything about, but it doesn't necessarily matter if you do. The song is a fucking killer. It's one of those beautiful slow building power-ballad-y jams that Boris always takes to the stratosphere. I don't even like it when they do the super rock stuff. I literally fall asleep when they do that. But when they get all quiet and then WAIL over a sad part, I wake up.

Ai Aso - "Islands"
Wata - "Angel"

Oh speaking of Shuggie, he's on the cover of the new Wax Poetics. And on the other cover is MF Doom. NICE. I went down to the Carolinas and listened to Interpol for the first time in forever. It was actually really good. The rest of the time I just wanted to listen to the Germs and the Buzzcocks, and then "Terrapin". I heard David Scott Stone hasn't been using his modular synth lately, which is maybe a good thing. The first song on side B of his Teardrops 7" is cool, but the rest of it is some snoozy noise. I hate saying that. I just want to hear his hardcore band! What else? Oh yeah, I already have a couple leads, but if you have a copy of the Ninja Turtles' Coming Out Of Their Shells Tour video (not the Making Of... video), and want to get rid of it, contact me immediately, please. Next post will be about Failures and Gary Wilson, no question about it. Maybe I'll mention Times New Viking. Err, I'll just do that now.

PS--Divshare issues have been worked out! You can listen to the songs without downloading anything. I'll fix the last couple posts so you can do that with those songs, too.