Album by Portishead. Island Records Third is an unnecessary album. From the beginning, all Portishead needed in the way of legacy was a pair of albums that felt like they’d dropped out of nowhere — somebody’s attic, maybe, or rescued from the flooded basement of a bankrupt ’70s soul label. Portishead built songs carefully out […]
Joel Hartse
Posted inMusic
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
Book by Oliver Sacks. Published by Knopf. Music, this weird and wonderful do-re-mi, welling up from the same ineffable place as our most basic expressions of instinct and desire — where does this stuff come from? Neurologist Oliver Sacks (Awakenings, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat) doesn’t know, but he offers some […]
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Juno Original Soundtrack
By various artists. Rhino Records. Kimya Dawson is kind of a deal-breaker. Whether she’s the personification of four-track, scruffy-round-the-edges authenticity or a mediocre singer plying a shoddy affectation is largely a matter of taste. But even though Ellen Page (who plays Juno) suggested to director Jason Reitman thatJuno’s title character would be into Dawson’s work […]
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Distortion
CD by The Magnetic Fields. Nonesuch Records Distortion is supposed to be Stephen Merritt’s take on the Jesus and Mary Chain’s Psychocandy.This from Merritt himself, who’s been touting J&MC’s 1985 masterpiece as the last good pop album ever made in recent interviews. (Maybe he never heard Radiohead. Or Oasis. Or Nirvana. Or the Postal Service. […]
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Sigur Ros: Heima
DVD Directed by Dean DeBlois. Xl Recordings Since critics are legally required to refer to their music as "epic," you might expect a film about Sigur Ros, who are better at creating spacious hugeness than any other working rock (post- or otherwise) band, to be overtly grandiose itself. Two obvious predecessors, U2’s Rattle and Humand […]
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Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo
CD by Rivers Cuomo Geffen Records Rivers Cuomo, the frontman of Weezer, once famously remarked that to be a true fan of his band, you have to hate it. Weezer injected a much-needed sense of playfulness to the grunge era with Weezer ("the Blue Album")(1994) and Pinkerton (1996). In fact, the fresh-faced earnestness of those […]
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In Rainbows
By now, everyone knows what happened: Radiohead reemerged from nowhere on Oct. 1, announcing that they planned to release a new studio album in 10 days, and by the way even though they’re one of the biggest rock bands in the world they’d be releasing it themselves on the Internet, oh and also by the […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Press of ages
When Chad Helmonds entered Humboldt State University five years ago, he weighed 315 pounds — a football player, 6’2”, a big guy by any standard. He had lifted weights in high school as a part of his football training, so he took some notice of the weightlifting records on the wall the first time he […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Trees and flowers
Like most junior high and high school students in Humboldt County, the teenagers I work with as a tutor are scrambling to finish their homework during this, their final week of school — there are essays on American authors due, presentations about U.S. History to be made, tests to be taken. Unlike most junior high […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Out for blood
The sky above our heads was inky black. But the sky on the horizon was not dark at all. It was shot with crimson, like a splash of blood. — Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier Thankfully, there were no splashes of blood on the Northern California Community Blood Bank’s Bloodmobile last Monday, although blood bank nurse […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Wastin’ time
The sun shines and the air fills our lungs with that peculiarly invigorating scent of dead fish and salt: lunchtime in Eureka. The Tyvek home wrap on Bayfront One (or, rather, Bayfront One Mk. II, a building crossing its metaphorical fingers that it will not be burned down before it has a chance to be […]