1. "Mayday": I'm listening to Snow -- the new LP by The New Year -- on a turntable, which means I can enjoy a twinge of (pseudo) nostalgic pleasure as the needle hits the vinyl with a bumpy scratch and the trademark guitars of the Kadane brothers cut through the hum of the pre-amp. I don't listen to much "new music" these days, but I'm already excited about this record; these guitars are jaunty and familiar, and I'm smiling the way I do when an old friend comes to town. The drinks arrive and we have two or three hours to kick back and forget the world. Which isn't to say anyone's pretending to be happy about everything: the singing begins with a simple rhyme that manages to feel timely, prophetic, and appropriately bleak, an encapsulation of just about everything -- at least politically -- unfolding at this (or every) juncture of the world's history, when each day seems to bring us closer to the edge of a chasm. (The only question being whether we're already in it and falling.) "Mayday ... Mayday ... We've left our heyday ... Searching the coffers ... for empty offers." But the sentiment could just as easily apply to those of us (like the band members and yours truly) who are old enough to look back at youth and shake our heads in wonder and dismay. As with so many Kadane songs, the lead guitar manages to say the same thing as the vocals, just without words.
2. "Snow": Here the guitar sounds different than anything I've heard from the Kadanes; I'm glad they're not rehashing the past. The sound is chunky and minimal, leaving tons of space for the vibraphone/keyboards; the song is a lucid dream, an out-of-body experience, a timeless afternoon spent looking out the window as the landscape turns white.
3. "Homebody": The guitars on this song are more typically Kadane-esque, which is to say melodic, sad, and beautiful. I'm grateful to hear these guitars after ten years, and even more grateful that they still have the ability to "touch" me when age and "the real world" has hardened me against so many other guitars.
4. "Recent History": I've listened to this song maybe fifteen times, and every time, when the introduction shifts gears from the first part to the second (you'll know exactly where I mean when you listen), my throat constricts and my eyes well up. I can't really explain it except to say that it conveys an enormous sense of loss and futility that so often corresponds with the most monumental effort. A metaphor for society (and life), this song should be our national anthem for at least the next decade.
5. "The Last Fall": This song represents another musical evolution for the band. It reminds me of The Wedding Present and The Stranglers (but not in a derivative way, which is never how the Kadanes & Company operate). If this is a sign of the future, I want to hear more.
6. "Myths": This song has a slow build, with electric guitars chiming over a strumming acoustic. The drums eventually kick in; a band with less nuance would turn this into something anthemic and imperious, but the Kadanes quickly adjust our expectations. ("There's no reason to celebrate.") The song ends with a quiet vocal and a keyboard; another whisper in the snow.
7. "The Party's Over": Some welcome off-tempo anger and distortion about those who can't acknowledge "the truth," in whatever context you want to think about it. (But there are some obvious ones.)
8. "Amnesia": This song builds on many of the above-described themes (musical and conceptual), providing a perfect bridge between the middle and the end.
9. "The Beast": A tornado of distortion gives way to a quiet, insistent pulse that never fades but provides the foundation for something entirely different (and better). I've had this fantasy about violence and starting over or maybe leaving the planet.
10. "Dead and Alive": A major-seventh progression slyly sums up an essential conundrum of life -- perfectly epitomized by the quietly deceptive beauty of a snowbound landscape -- which is the death we hold within us (and never stop craving), even as we endure life, because -- wtf -- what choice do we have? The record ends; but if you don't yet own it, it's waiting to begin.
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06/03/2017
ORDER HERE
A RADICAL NEW MYTH ABOUT SEX, FAITH, AND THOSE OF US WHO WILL NEVER DIE
A young boy wanders into the woods of Harlem and witnesses the abduction of his sister by a glowing creature. Forty years later, now working as a New York City homicide detective, Gus is assigned to a case in which he unexpectedly succumbs to a vision that Helen is still alive. To find her, he embarks on an uorthodox investigation that leads to an ancient civilization of gods and the people determined to bring them back.
In this colossal new novel from the author of The Metropolis Case, the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice collides with a new religion founded by three corporate office workers, creating something beautiful, illogical, and overwhelming. Part sex manifesto, part religious text, part Manhattan noir—with a dose of deadly serious, internet inspired satire—#gods is a sprawling inquest into the nature of faith and resistance in the modern world. With each turn of the page, #gods will leave you increasingly reborn.
Praise for #gods
“#gods is a mystery, an excavation of myths, an index of modern life, a gay coming-of-age story, an office satire, a lyrical fever dream, a conspiracy. One of the most ambitious novels in recent memory—and a wild, possibly transformative addition to the canon of gay literature—it contains multitudes, and seethes with brilliance.” —Mark Doten, author of The Infernal
“Matthew Gallaway’s #gods is a novel so brilliant, so funny, so full of strange and marvelous things, I couldn’t stop writing OMG WTF I <3 THIS SO MUCH in its margins. It’s rare to find a novel that so dazzlingly reinvigorates age-old meditations on faith and f&!*ing, art and eros. Luminous, enterprising, and sublimely cheeky, #gods tells the story, the myth, the dream of the human soul in all its glorious complexity.” —Suzanne Morrison, author of Yoga Bitch
“Matthew Gallaway’s storytelling manages to be both dreamy and serious; lean and luxurious. His words carry an incantatory power of mythic storytelling where beauty and savagery wrap around each other like bright threads in a gorgeous tapestry.” —Natasha Vargas-Cooper, author of Mad Men Unbuttoned: A Romp Through 1960s America
“If the ancient gods were just like us, only more so, then the same could be said for this strange, wonderful book, in which the mundane sorrows and small triumphs of very ordinary lives glow ever so slightly around the edges, sometimes quite literally. At once an oddly romantic send-up of dead-end office culture and an offbeat supernatural procedural, #gods is terrifically weird, melancholy, sexy, and charming.” —Jacob Bacharach, author of The Bend of the World
'It’s to the credit of Matthew Gallaway’s enchanting, often funny first novel that it doesn’t require a corresponding degree of obsession from readers, but may leave them similarly transported: the book is so well written — there’s hardly a lazy sentence here — and filled with such memorable lead and supporting players that it quickly absorbs you into its worlds.'
-- The New York Times
Music: Death Culture at Sea and Saturnine
Listen or download songs and records from my indie-rock past with Saturnine here and Death Culture at Sea here.
Music Video: Remembrance of Things Past
Watch the rock opera Remembrance of Things Past written and performed by Saturnine and Frances Gibson, starring Bennett Madison and Sheila McClear.
Video: The Chaos Detective
The Chaos Detective is a series about a man searching for 'identity' as he completes assignments from a mysterious organization. Watch the first episode (five parts) on YouTube.