Matthew Friedberger’s genes don’t sit well with Radiohead, and are partial to the odd faux pas. He laid into Radiohead, and then tried to pass it off as a joke. “Nah, c’mon guys, I knew that, I made that joke deliberately…” And that’s why we prefer that you keep your mouth shut Matthew, and let Eleanor do the vox.

I do not like where this is headed.

Kornwolf, on the other hand, is sensational…

“Kornwolf is about Rumspringa, fisticuffs, homecomings, alienation, and AMish whiskey ministers, as seen through the eyes of a young man who finds himself inexplicably waking up in the fields every morning.”

Much like Lord of The Barnyard, it’s a southern-gothic romp. It’s about The Basin, a collection of small towns–Lampeter, Intercourse, Blue Ball, Bird-in-Hand, Laycock, and Paradise (yep, those towns actually exist. You couldn’t make that up), made up of communities of Amish Mennonites and English Redcoats who are suffering harassment from The Blue Ball Devil, a werewolf, the Kornwolf, who for some reason looks a little bit like Richard Nixon. Rural American culture, religio-superstition, terror, slapstick, and wit are piled up as fast as cop-cruisers on Route 30. The end is apparent from the start, but you can’t help but read on for the sheer absurdity of it. Every lunge toward hysteria goes a little further than the last until the whole thing goes beyond the point of no return. It’s faster and easier to read (and therefore there’s much less grinding of the teeth) than Lord of The Barnyard, and it’s also more fantastical–both things I am not particularly partial to, but it’s almost as good anyway.

The poet stops and stares at that which most of us merely glance at; he pauses to notice what is humane, significant and important. The poet joins King David in observing that the human is “fearfully and wonderfully made”, and notices, regardless of his theological beliefs, the tragicomic nature of reality surrounded by both God’s judgement and his grace. Whatever else it may be, poetry is not trivial. It may be perverse or twisted, angry or bitter, rebellious or self-centered, heterodox or even blasphemous, but it is not trivial. I am inclined to agree with William Hazlitt, who argued that “all that is worth remembering of life is the poetry of it. Fear is poetry, hope is poetry, love is poetry, hatred is poetry; contempt, jealousy, remorse, admiration, wonder, pity, despair, or madness, all are poetry.” Reading verse rescues us from the mundaneness of life; it permits us to observe again with wonder, and shocks us out of our cynicism and joylessness. After a day in which we have been constantly distracted by electronic devices grasping for our attention, or numbed by a “to-do” list that makes even our PDA sigh with despair, we read Robert Frost’s “Birches”, and we are alive again–alive as humans, alert to beauty, to creation, to play.

A quote-unquote famous rap star, Jay-Z:

Lord forgive him
He got them dark forces in him
But he also got a righteous cause for sinnin’
Them a murder me, so I gotta murder them first
Emergency doctors performin’ procedures
Jesus. I ain’t tryin’ to be facetious
But “Vengeance is mine”, said the Lord
You said it better than all
Leave niggas on deaths door
Breathin’ off respirators
For killin’ my best boy, HATERS
On permanent hiatus as I skate
In the Maybach Benz
Flier than Sanaa Lathan
Pumpin’ Brown Sugar by D’Angelo
In Los Angeles, like an evangelist
I can introduce you to your maker
Bring you closer to nature
Ashes after they cremate you bastards
Hope you been readin’ your Psalms and chapters…

I know it’s old hat in 2009 to listen to bastard pop, but I have been loving the Jaydiohead album an awful lot lately. Radiohead’s infallible ’scapes make the guilty pleasure of listening to Jay-Z mouthing off more than just a passing novelty. The tracks are kept sparse and not overdone, with Thom Yorke’s vocals only featuring twice, obviously on ‘No Karma’, and interestingly on ‘Change Order’ where Jay sings about drugs between Thom’s A couple more for breakfast / A little more for tea / Just to take the edge off. You gotta let yourself go a little, embrace it.

Ezekiel is identified as psychic, schizophrenic, epileptic, catatonic, psychotic, or paranoid… perhaps the most notorious example of this sort of approach to the prophet was the Freudian analysis offered by Broome, who concluded that Ezekiel was “a true psychotic” characterised by “a narcissistic-masochistic conflict, with attendant phantasies of castration and unconscious sexual regression” “schizophrenic withdrawal,” and “delusions of persecution and grandeur”.

Ezekiel, Son of Buzi:

“And the hand of the LORD was there upon me; and he said unto me, Arise, go forth into the plain, and I will there talk with thee. Then I arose, and went forth into the plain: and, behold, the glory of the LORD stood there, as the glory which I saw by the river of Chebar: and I fell on my face. Then the spirit entered into me, and set me upon my feet, and spake with me, and said unto me, Go, shut thyself within thine house. But thou, O son of man, behold, they shall put bands upon thee, and shall bind thee with them, and thou shalt not go out among them: And I will make thy tongue cleave to the roof of thy mouth, that thou shalt be dumb, and shalt not be to them a reprover: for they are a rebellious house. But when I speak with thee, I will open thy mouth, and thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD…

“Son of man, behold, I am about to take the delight of your eyes away from you at a stroke; yet you shall not mourn or weep, nor shall your tears run down. Sigh, but not aloud; make no mourning for the dead. Bind on your turban, and put your shoes on your feet; do not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men.” So I spoke to the people in the morning, and at evening my wife died.

Badly Drawn Boy: Silent Sigh

100 km/h winds predicted any moment now. What fun.

Edit: BBC’s pictures, and epic YouTube video:

Edit II: Boudist came through with some of the best photos, and The Big Picture got in on the act too.

U2’s No Line On The Horizon is probably the worst U2 album… easily my least favourite. Especially after How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. On this album the music has no edge (sorry) and the lyrics bring U2 and Hillsong one step closer together. Putting the words ‘ATM machine’ in a song is a bit of a turn off, not to mention the line ‘force quit and move to trash’. At least now we know Bono uses a Mac. I’m glad I saw U2 when they toured after How To Dismantle nn Atomic Bomb, because now they just look old, rolling out the same old lines that were cool in the nineties. Which is not to say that they aren’t geniuses, and I will likely buy their next album too, ’cause if anyone can turn it around, U2 can.

After seeing pinky Beecroft & The White Russians earlier this year I had to get their album, Somethin’ Somewhere Better. It’s a sensational album from start to finish. The lyrics are hilarious, yet heart-breakingly serious. A ten out of ten album for sure.

TZU’s CoverUp Motel is the entire Computer Love album remixed by the likes of Sulo, Hermitude, Jackson Jackson, Blue King Brown, Mista Savona, and various other Australian hip-hop stalwarts. It’s okay. Okay remixes of an okay album. You’d stick to TZU’s earlier albums unless you were hardcore.

Magali recommended Starsailor’s Boy in Waiting EP to me a while back. I had given up on Starsailor a bit, because I didn’t like their previous album much, but they’re back with a more acoustic sound on All The Plans and aside from one track of garbled politics called Stars and Stripes it’s a pretty brilliant album.

At some second hand store I picked up Endorphin’s Sex & Violence single. One of those promo only things that DJs throw out. The single features tha kid from Lo-Tel (remember them?), and has a remix by Sonicanimation. Can’t go wrong, right?

Also from the same second hand store, Travis’ Driftwood.

Probably just edging out Pinky Beecroft as the best purchase of this year is Elbow with The Seldom Seen Kid. The lyrics and orchestral arrangement on this album drive me crazy. You do want to download their performance of this album with the BBC Concert Orchestra.

Idlewild’s disappointing last two albums didn’t leave me much hope for this one but it turned out okay. It’s nothing like the rough punk Idlewild used to come up with, and I think we can give up hope that that will ever be back. But it’s still a pretty good album. It still has Idlewild’s trademark wintry sound. the first half of the album is especially good.

The Duckworth Lewis Method is a bit of a supergroup, a combination of Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy and Thomas Walsh of Pugwash. the music is understandably excellent, and the songs are energetic and heartfelt. Oh, and they’re all about cricket. But before you dismiss (sorry again) it, you most certainly would not need to like or know anything about cricket to appreciate this. Some songs such as The Sweet Spot take their cue from cricket but aren’t at all about the sport. Others such as The Nightwatchman cleverly could be about cricket, but equally about something else. The Duckworth Lewis Method are no Six & Out.

The Lucksmiths are calling it a day so a couple of weeks ago I went out and saw their last ever Sydney gig. It was awesome, as The Lucksmiths are just one of those bands. So much energy, so much fun, so unique, and so talented. After being thoroughly impressed all over again (it feels like a decade ago that I first heard T-Shirt Weather on the radio, but apparently it was only 2002) I decided I’d legitimise my copies of a few of their albums. Spring A Leak is a double album of b-sides, covers, remixes, et cetera.

Where Were We? is one of my favourite Lucksmiths albums. Pitchfork says that From the songs, you’d think they never left the mythical Aussie town where they grew up and plan to die. Probably a good way to describe The Lucksmiths on this album (and one of the rare times Pitchfork gets anything right, pretentious so-and-sos that they are).

And just this weekend Amy was at the markets and spotted The Lucksmiths’ What Bird Is That? and nabbed it for me. Which happens to have Danielle Steele on it–the first ever song of theirs that I ever heard. The circle is complete, or something like that.