Mica Levi & Oliver Coates - Remain Calm (2016)

Unsubscribing from junk e-mails has imparted an unnerving quiet.

I believed this would be a step towards freedom, mornings now unburdened by the periodic vibration of incoming mail. But now... now I suspect I've metamorphosed from creature to zombie of habit. Last night, awoken by a familiar glow, I became terrified to find my thumb controlled by movements of a memory. Unlock phone; check email application; turn phone off; open and unlock; check email; turn off... over and over and over. My undead thumb bends only at the hip like a forgotten grandparent who shuffles to the mailbox every afternoon only to find the same vacant shadow. My thumb, now a feedback loop, like an alcoholic that searches the recycling again and again for one drop, a neglected swig of whiskey, only to confirm the emptiness it already knows exists.



A series of empty dawns have emerged. Gone are the days of those quivering little jolts insisting I pause my life to check and delete, check and delete. Newlsetters, updates, notifications, advertisements... all those small reminders of my past. Clothing stores relentlessly reminding me of each approaching season and a hoodie I bought for some autumn, lost several years ago. Gone. Zillow emails that satisfied the curiosities of an armchair voyeur, taking me into homes I'd never afford, around towns I'd never live. Gone. Charities and political organizations I helped once, before I understood my economic situation as anything but dire.

Gone. I've shoo-ed them all away. The tactile buzzes, the audible chirps. No more little red numbers to offer hope of a hello from a long lost friend. No potential for restless declarations from smoldering hearts of past lovers. Those little red numbers could've meant literally anything - a wedding invitation, the birth of a new family member, a class action settlement worth hundreds. But in the end, the numbers always meant the same thing: "this much junk".

I have won the war. And now? Now, I am unburdened. Now my time is uninhibited. Ready to live each day uninterrupted. A new dawn of awesome unpopular potential. Still -  the thumb checks. Just to fill an emptiness. Everything's always empty. Just maybe, tomorrow something. Always maybe tomorrow.

Mica Levi & Oliver Coates - Remain Calm

Slight Birching - Cultural Envelope (2014)

To reveal my methodology on these write-ups a bit, I generally will give an album an first listen in the evening when I'm too weary to do anything but passively listen. I try not to form much of an opinion the first go around, and save that for a more attentive hearing in the morning, for if thing work out well I'm usually more clearheaded and productive in the cool morning air with my hot coffee at hand. As a matter of routine at this point I get up and pull the headphones over my ears right after putting on my pants, only in the order as I need a pocket for my iPod to rest in.

Now I'd be lying if I said I religious stuck to the intending listening material and never found myself playing Televison's Marquee Moon or Tyrannosaurus Rex's A Beard of Stars for the Nth time. However, every now and again I have an album I'm already so eager to re-listen to that I forgo my usual habit of repeatedly pressing the snooze button and clumsily search for a music player straightaway. The warm folk of Cultural Envelope provoked that sort of energizing awakening for me, in fact I started at the end with the very apopros song "you have nowhere to go" with the lyrics "Wake up, it's morning, the Sun's out, a warning, you have no place to go." Of course, I've a dead end job to go to, but feels like a proper sentiment nonetheless.

The songs done by this Canadian going by Slight Birching have contradictorily contain gloomy realities and optimism, self-improvement along with self-ridicule. All in a wonderfully hazy lo-fi bedroom folk style. They aren't quick, rather at times there's a good bout of silence at the beginning of the tracks, but it is worth waiting for it to get started. Experimental and electronically effected the songs are well-produced compositions even without paying attention to the lyrical content, but I think he's a fine poet on top of it and makes the singing gratifying to analyze. Finally, thanks to my Parisian friend over at With A Messy Head for telling me about this album, you all should know by now to trust that man's unassailable taste.

To be had here:
Slight Birching - Cultural Envelope