Fred and Finley are two friends who love music. Their album reviews are experimental. Music is discussed and the conversation is transcribed, akin to a play. Here, we are trying to incorporate music and music reviews into a more personal realm, into something that maybe truly opens up a dialogue between critic and audience. In order to do so, their conversation will be transcribed as is, raw, to promote an ideal of immediacy and sharing.
SPRAIN, ‘THE LAMB AS EFFIGY’
Fred: Let’s start with yours.
Finley: Oh right. [Throws post-it notes on table.] Yeah. Sprain, The Lamb as Effigy. Right. I listened to it twice before I told you to listen to it and…. The first time, I think I was too focused on the album cover.
Fred: It’s a good album cover.
Finley: I think it tainted how good I thought the album was. It’s just… It’s intense, man.
Fred: It is.
Finley: It kind of made me feel a bit insane. Genuinely, like wanting to start kicking people’s shins and stuff. It’s aggressive, man.
Fred: I pictured it as a theatre production. But what I really thought, which might be not great, was that it never kicked in.
Finley: [laughs] He was screaming at the top of his lungs from the first song.
Fred: Yeah. Yeah. But it was building to something. It had an operatic build which never…
Finley: …fully peaked?
Fred: Yeah.
Finley: It’s like a play. You’re watching some guy, lose his mind on stage, on his own. I thought it was about him and God at one point. It got… intense.
Fred: When I opened it up, I thought, oh, let’s see what Finley’s given me. An hour and a half!
Finley: The best time for me was the first listen.
Fred: I don’t know whether I could listen to it again.
Finley: No, trust me. Three times. Once is enough. To make it clear, I did like it.
Fred: I really liked it.
Finley: But it’s kind of…
Fred: Miserable?
Finley: They’ve released an EP before, that I thought was… not as insane as this one.
Fred: I think the instrumentation overrode the lyrics a bit.
Finley: Yeah. I mean it sounds almost like a kind of haunted medieval orchestra in the background, or something like a medieval little band in the background. But it’s just… I don’t know man. It’s a weird sound.
Fred: It’s a weird sound.
Finley: It’s an October sound. Halloween sound…
(Clearly neither party have any idea what they’re talking about.)
SUFJAN STEVENS, JAVELIN
Fred: You know what? we should talk about the Sufjan Stevens album Javelin. I thought it was, autumnal.
Finley: Yeah? I got Christmas.
Fred: …
Finley: I don’t know man. I’ll read my post-its:
- Gospel?
- Sufjan Stevens and Cat Stevens are different people?
- An arrow saying least qualified Sufjan Stevens enjoyer.
First of all, I thought Sufjan Stevens was Cat Stevens… I was like, what? Is Cat Stevens even still alive? Is he?
Fred: I don’t think so, maybe. You did say, “Well it’s Sufjan Stevens, of course we’ve got to listen to him.”
Finley: Yeah yeah, I was talking about a completely different person. Then I’ve got:
- It goes Christmassy at one point.
- It feels like falling asleep on like a rowing boat.
Finley: I was listening to it on the bus. It’s very peaceful.
Fred: It is very peaceful. (Fred continues to agree, despite not listening to one word Finley has said.)
Finley: There was a lot about Jesus. Is Sufjan Stephens as religious as Cat Stevens?
Fred: I read a bit about Sufjan Stephens.
Finley: Inform me.
Fred: It was… it is like, about religion… and it’s religious. Yeah.
Finley: Cat Stevens is religious.
Fred: Maybe he’s Cat’s son or something… I think we’re on a tangent.
Finley: Yeah. I wrote: Are they using like little lutes and stuff?
Fred: Yeah. (What?) Are we describing it as Robin Hood…
Finley: …meets Blade Runner
Fred: Yeah. (No.) I definitely got that Christmas feeling. So, for Christmas…
Finley: Sufjan Stevens.
Fred: Sufjan Stevens for Christmas.
Finley: I also have ‘terminator’ written down, so I don’t know.
Fred: I don’t know where you got that from.
Finley: Yeah, so Christmas meets Terminator.
Fred: Sprain… not so much.
Finley: Sprain is alone music.
Fred: Listening to the full album is a tough ask.
Finley: No judgment if you don’t, it could snap you… I feel like I’ve learned something.
Fred: Um, should we move on to Headache?
Headache, The Head Hurts but the Heart Knows the Truth
Finley: This was my favourite.
Fred: Yeah, I’ve listened to it probably eight times, it just takes you somewhere. It’s so in your head, just image after image of this depressing guy.
Finley: Does he fall over?
Fred: I think so or dreaming that he fell over.
Finley: I think someone falls over, at some point.
Fred: Something about dreaming and he walks into a lamp post.
Finley: I’ll pull out my notes.
Fred: Um. while you’re finding that I want to say that it’s sad but…
Finley: …There’s something about a leopard skin jacket or something.
Fred: Yeah.
Finley: I wrote: “morning music, but not from the night before.”
Fred: I’ve definitely done that.
Finley: That would drive me mental.
Fred: It’s an album where you listen all the way through, because It’s only half an hour. It’s a sad tale about this one sad guy.
Finley: [Looking at Post-Its] That leads me to my next point, “AI freestyle”?
Fred: I read about Something to do with AI, I’m not sure.
Finley: What does Vegyn do?
Fred: He does it all. Vegyn is the producer.
Finley: Vegyn and I are not familiar. Does Vegyn normally sing?
Fred: Usually it’s just beats. It’s very bitty like – Beep boop. Beep. boop.
Finley: Beep. Boop beep boop? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, like that. I love beepy boopy music.
There’s a weird track by Swan’s, about someone having a shower and forgetting how to turn the water on. it reminded me of a Headache Lyric. I’ll find it, it’s about a leopard skin coat.
Fred: We’ll cut this.
Finley: Yeah, yeah. The line is, “If I could just figure out/ what the old woman wearing that salmon pink snakeskin jacket wants from me/ I’d feel a whole lot better.”
Where else would you read that?
Image Credits: “Sufjan Stevens @ Sasquatch 06” by tammylo is licensed under CC BY 2.0.