Supervixen

Garbage, a band lead by self-proclaimed supervixen Shirley Manson, was key to the development of my sexuality as a teen. I'm wondering how similar slinky/damaged/dark sexualities might exist in today's popular music.

Pop has always been about sex, but much of it in the 90's represented a coy, normative sexuality. Now, much of pop's sexuality is quite explicit and raw, striking an alternative pose.

Conversely, I can think of no music more blandly asexual than the mainstream rock of the previous five years. Where would a song like this come from, today? Could it come from anywhere?

What one once knew how to do

When I was 18 I did my 9th grade in piano from the Royal Conservatory. I didn't go for Grade 10 but I learned some pieces for it. I was as good at piano as I wanted to be.

10 years later, my fingers feel slow and stupid. I can plow through Wedding Day at Troldhaugen, but I do it by force, not finesse.

It'd come back if I practised. I don't have time. I sit at the piano occasionally like I've woken from a wonderful dream and am trying to fall back asleep, hoping it'll continue, knowing it won't.

Explaining Canadian Literature to an American

Telling non-academics about life as an academic is productive but awkward (these qualities pal around a lot). Telling an American non-academic about being a scholar of Canadian literature is doubly so.

He didn't know Canada had a literature. "Oh yes!" Is it like Canadian Content regulations for the music on our radio? I hemmed with Joni Mitchell and hawed with Margaret Atwood. "No! Maybe! Yes? I'm no Canadian patriot!" As if mutual understanding required that info-nugget to be in play.

Anyway. Do you know Girl Talk? Everyone should. It is necessary, if you like music. Here's some nice trans-national Girl Talk.

Son Lux: 'At War with Walls and Mazes' and 'We Are Rising'

I have some trouble categorizing the music Son Lux makes. Cyborg lovesongs? I quite like his first album, At War with Walls and Mazes. It combines warm acoustic instruments with electronic blip-bloops. It cuts sounds up, mutates, stutters them. It has this chant-thing happening, too. Chant aesthetic? Lyrics are repeated for effect in a ghostly, fragile voice. There are leitmotif recurring throughout, but the arrangements and the textures are interesting and varied. It's lonely yet compelling. Some good.



His second album, We Are Rising, is coming out in a couple of weeks. You can and should stream it on NPR.