Posted in Whathaveyou on January 30th, 2018 by JJ Koczan
So here’s the thing: I’ve covered long-running Finnish progressive metallers Amorphis a few times over the years, and have spoken at some length about how much their past work means to me and helped to shape my personal taste in metal and underground heavy rock. I’m what you’d call a fan. But I’ve never really thought of them as a band that fit with this site. Progressive as they are, they’re more metal than not, and while there might be a few unfamiliar heads who get turned onto what they’re doing, I have the feeling that most of the people who read this site would just greet coverage of their doings with complete apathy, and it’s kind of my fear of that more than anything else that’s kept me away from writing about them over the years. It’s a bummer when people aren’t into the same stuff you’re into.
Well, because it’s my site and because I can, I’m saying screw that this time around. Amorphis‘ 2015 album, Under the Red Cloud, which I finally picked up not too long ago, was badass and I’m not going to miss out covering something I think would be fun to write about because only maybe a couple other people who read the site might give a crap. Amorphis are working now with Jens Bogren on pre-production for their next record. Whether it’s a perfect fit for The Obelisk or not, I’m going to be covering this album to the best of my ability, and I’m looking forward to it.
The PR wire gets us started:
AMORPHIS working on new studio album
Melancholic progressive metallers AMORPHIS recently released their 2015 studio album Under The Red Cloud, which won countless soundchecks and reached great chart results all around the world, including their first ever entry in United Kingdom and Australia, as well as their highest ever entries in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands and France. Following this success, they released their Under The Red Cloud Tour Edition in February 2017, including the entire album with two bonus songs as well as the live tracks of their An Evening With Friends-Shows @ Juhlaviikot – Huvila (more info, see below).
Today, there are some good news for all fans of AMORPHIS: The band is currently working on a new studio album! The pre-production process is already done and most of the recordings have been finished. But this time, the band didn’t rush at all and took their time to focus on details so there’ll be also some really amazing surprises: additional recordings with real strings and flutes, as well as orchestra arrangements and choirs! In addition, this is the first time that people will be able to hear their lyricist Pekka Kainulainen on the album as he contributes a speech in Finnish!
Jens Bogren (OPETH, AMON AMARTH, KATATONIA, and many others) will be once again the producer of the upcoming album. More details to be announced soon, so stay tuned!
AMORPHIS live 2018: 12.05. N Kopervik – Karmoygeddon Metal Festival 08.06. FIN Hyvinkää – Rockfest 09.06. FIN Tampere – South Park Festival 13.06. J Tokyo – Shibuya Club Quattro 14.06. J Osaka – Umeda Club Quattro 21. – 23.06. D St. Goarshausen – RockFels 22. – 24.06. F Clisson – Hellfest 04. – 07.07. D Ballenstedt – Rockharz Open Air 06.07. FIN Lohja – Rantajamit 12. – 14.07. D Balingen – Bang Your Head!!! 12. – 15.07. CZ Vizovice – Masters of Rock 20./21.07. FIN Laukaa – John Smith Rock Festival 26. – 28.07. FIN Kuopio – RockCock 27./28.07. FIN Oulu – Qstock 02. – 04.08. D Wacken – Wacken Open Air 08. – 11.08. E Villena – Leyendas del Rock
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 30th, 2018 by JJ Koczan
Here’s a fun one: We know that D.C. heavy groovers Borracho recently issued their Riffography (review here) collection spanning their 10 years together front to back with assorted unreleased or at very least rarer-than-not tracks. That came out through Ripple Music. Their preceding 2016 full-length, Atacama (review here), came out via Kozmik Artifactz, where 2013’s Oculus (review here) and their 2011 debut, Splitting Sky (review here), landed through Strange Magic Records and No Balls Records, respectively.
Now. One of these LP offerings has been picked up for a vinyl release by Cursed Tongue Records, but the label isn’t quite ready to say which one. What they’re doing instead is hosting an Instagram challenge where you put your favorite Borracho platter on your turntable, snap a picture of it on your fancy phone, and post it up on Instagram with the hashtag “CTRBorrachoChallenge.”
As soon as they get to 30 posts, Cursed Tongue will reveal which album it’s releasing. See? I told you it was a fun one.
Details follow:
-|- CTR-BORRACHO CHALLENGE -|-
CTR has just announced the signing of mighty Borracho out of DC, US for impending vinyl release. However, before we reveal what album we are talking about you will have to accept a little challenge!
The idea is to get many release pictures posted all around Instagram in order to draw attention toward the Borracho. They have released many things on vinyl along the years; so many people have them in their collection; they just need to dust them off and blast them on their turntable!!!
Dust off one of your Borracho vinyl copies and post a picture of it with the following hashtag #CTRBorrachoChallenge
Once we get 30 posts, we will unveil the album details \,,/
Meanwhile, you can take all the guesses you want
#CursedTongueRecords #CTR #Borracho #BorrachoBand
Borracho is: Steve Fisher – Guitar, Vocals Tim Martin – Bass Mario Trubiano – Drums
[Click play above to stream ‘Satyr’ from Beneath Oblivion’s The Wayward and the Lost. Album is out March 27 on Weird Truth Productions.]
The sludge that Beneath Oblivion elicit is nothing less than a destructive force. While the Midwest and particularly Ohio is known for the unhinged, pill-added fuckall proffered by the likes of Fistula and their many offshoots and related outfits, 2018 marks a decade and a half of the Cincinnati-based troupe’s onslaught, and they celebrate with the issue through Japanese imprint Weird Truth Productions of their first full-length in seven years. Last heard from with 2011’s From Man to Dust, the woeful foursome return to apply roughly that same ethic to the five-track/64-minute churn of The Wayward and the Lost. It lurches. It crushes. It creates a sonic and emotional miasma from which it feels like there’s no escape.
Its depression runs deep through extended tracks like opener “The City (My Mausoleum)” (15:12) and “The Liar’s Cross” (13:47), and is immersive in its atmospheric punishment as founding guitarist/vocalist Scott Simpson leads the way through the molasses trudge. Granted, it’s been over half a decade, so one shouldn’t necessarily be surprised at some measure of stylistic shift, but Beneath Oblivion‘s approach on the whole throughout The Wayward and the Lost is more atmospheric than either of its two predecessors, From Man to Dust or 2006’s Existence Without Purpose, both of which were released through The Mylene Sheath and had more of a post-hardcore spirit than shown in the droning extremity of The Wayward and the Lost even in its shortest track, the penultimate “Savior-Nemesis-Redeemer” (7:21), which precedes ultra-lurching closer “Satyr” itself an all-consuming 16:20 of aural quicksand. Revelry in brutality; brutality in excess.
Taken in the context of the recent triumph of darkness that was Bell Witch‘s 2017 offering, Mirror Reaper, it’s perhaps not surprising to learn that The Wayward and the Lost was also helmed by Billy Anderson (Acid King, Neurosis, etc.), as its blend of claustrophobic tonality from Simpson and Allen Scott — who also adds to the liberal amount of drones and noise included throughout these tracks — though the bulk of the basic material seems to have been put to tape in 2015 by Simpson, Scott, bassist Keith Messerle and drummer Nate Bidwell with further grim flourish added after the fact.
One can hear the effects of that as drones and echoes fill out the reaches of the otherwise minimalist, extreme and excruciating “Satyr” at the album’s finish, but from “The City (My Mausoleum),” which opens with a deceptive innocent melancholy of guitar and eerie cymbal wash, the threat of violence is never completely absent. Unlike most of The Wayward and the Lost, “The City (My Mausoleum)” in its early going feels specifically indebted to Neurosis via YOB, but by the time Beneath Oblivion build into their first slow-motion rollout and engulfing, nod-topping screams, their course through sludge-laden cruelty seems set, and while their approach is by no means unipolar — that is, the screams and growls and lumber and pummel dissipate in favor of trades into sparse lines of guitar, swells of volume emerging in a dynamic back and forth interplay — they’ve already somewhat subtly begun the work that will continue throughout the subsequent tracks.
Now, it’s important to keep in mind that, as regards subtlety and Beneath Oblivion, it’s probably not the first word that’s going to come to mind, what with the unmanageable 64 minutes of punishment that The Wayward and the Lost carries across with such ferocity and patience, but as grueling and intense as these songs can be, there’s a sense of exploration within them as well. That comes through in the pre-midsection of “The Liar’s Cross” and in the rolling “Savior-Nemesis-Redeemer,” which might be the most straightforward inclusion here from Beneath Oblivion by whatever standard one might want to apply. Again, all things are relative. The impulse with a band like Beneath Oblivion is to cast them as misanthropes, as a kind of four-man counterculture working against the norms of songcraft and accessibility.
Well, I’m perfectly willing to grant that The Wayward and the Lost is about as audience-friendly as a carpenter’s nail through the skull when taken front to back, but to separate the group from what it is to be human and especially what it is to be human in the varied age of wonders and horrors in which we live cheats the band of perhaps one of the most crucial elements of their expression. A group doesn’t just come back after seven years and put out a record if they don’t have something do say, and with the stated theme of addiction, The Wayward and the Lost explores a pivotal aspect of this moment, but even if one wants to take it on a less analytical, more impressionistic level, it shows us the depths to which our minds can go that more often than not we’re more afraid to plunder. The growth the band has undertaken that has allowed them to do so is no less evident than the volume of their delivery, and in Beneath Oblivion‘s maturity there is a focus of intent that belies the album’s title. We may be wayward, lost, but the band has every idea of how they want to represent that, and in their success, they cast depths and spaces the harshness of which reflects our own cruelties and apathy back at us.
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 29th, 2018 by JJ Koczan
It stands to reason there would be a new record from The Golden Grass this year, but that doesn’t make the confirmation of its coming any less welcome. Given the righteous title Absolutely the third long-player and second for Listenable Records from the good-time-harmonious Brooklynite trio will comprise eight tracks and see release April 6. The central question involved is whether the new offering will continue down the progressive path that their 2016 sophomore outing, Coming Back Again (review here), or readjust the focus back toward the classic-feeling hooks that permeated The Golden Grass‘ 2014 Svart Records self-titled debut (review here). Nothing this band does is by mistake, so wherever they end up, you can get it’s entirely right where they want to be sound-wise. I look forward to finding out just where that is.
Info from the PR wire. Be friends with it:
THE GOLDEN GRASS: Psychedelic Retro Rock Power Trio To Release Absolutely Full-Length Via Listenable Records This Spring
Brooklyn, New York’s THE GOLDEN GRASS is free-wheelin’, good-time rock ‘n’ roll band manifesting a soulful mix of heavy-country-funk-boogie and progressive-psychedelic-freakbeat. The group effortlessly draws their influence from a time when rock ruled the world as if they truly are from that “Golden” era. But their gift to us is in The Now, and it is an epic, soulful, and hard-hitting maelstrom of anthemic and tough-swinging aural delights.
THE GOLDEN GRASS will release their third full-length, titled Absolutely, this Spring via Listenable Records. An eight-track sonic adventure steeped in psychedelic flavored blues riffs, the mind-warping fantasy of early progressive/jazz rock, a pulsating British freakbeat/mod sound, heavy doses of proto-metal power, funk, sou, and a southern rock edge, Absolutely is undoubtedly the band’s strongest, most accomplished offering to date.
Absolutely will see North American release on April 6th via Listenable Records with teaser tracks, preorders, and further info to be announced in the coming weeks.
Absolutely Track Listing: 1. Catch Your Eye 2. Show Your Hand 3. Never You Mind 4. Runaway 5. Walk Along 6. The Spell 7. Out On The Road 8. Begging The Question
THE GOLDEN GRASS Discography: 456thDiv. – Cassette EP One More Time / Tornado 7″ EP A Curious Case / The Pilgrim 7″ EP Realisations 11″ EP The Golden Grass (Svart Records) Coming Back Again (Listenable Records) Absolutely (Listenable Records)
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 29th, 2018 by JJ Koczan
Riff-driven Pittsburgh four-piece JaketheHawk have released their debut album, Year of the Hawk, on Blackseed Records. Comprised of an utterly manageable and thoroughly unpretentious five tracks, the offering readily toes the line between heavy rock and more aggressive, metallic fare, finding a niche not heard from the Steel City since the likes of SuperVoid a few years back, but presented with a bluesier take and a less directly metal base of influence. Okay I guess maybe less like SuperVoid and more like a band that also has funny capitalization in their name with words smashed together and every now and then might break out a scream or two. You got me.
The album, including the dreamy left turn of “Witchy Weather,” is streaming in full at the bottom of this post, and the CD and download versions are available now. I’m not so sure about the Uncle Acid comparison below — maybe the riff of “Horizon?” — but I’ve heard way more tenuous lines drawn between bands. Dig in and see what you think.
From the PR wire:
Jakethehawk – Blackseed Records
Inundating the Pittsburgh scene with their blend of grunge-inspired desert/stoner rock, JakeTheHawk has been moving audiences and peers alike with their unique sound and exceptionally original songwriting. Comprised of two sets of brothers, Jordan Lober (drums), Justin Lober (bass), Cam Ferrante (guitar), and Jake Ferrante (guitar/vocals), their sound is an amalgam of the influences each set of brothers was raised on. Reminiscent of the evil, bluesy riffs of Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats and the charging, fuzzed out rhythms of Kyuss, JakeTheHawk pull in the familiar to create their own voice in the desert/stoner rock genre.
JakeTheHawk will be releasing their debut album Year of the Hawk on CD and online via experimental/heavy underground label, Blackseed Records. The album will be available via Blackseed Records and Bandcamp on January 26th, 2018.
Posted in Bootleg Theater on January 29th, 2018 by JJ Koczan
The echoing pastoralia of Catch the Breeze‘s new single occurs as the middle portion of a three-song opening salvo from their forthcoming Kundalini Records debut album, Glow. If nothing else, the record is aptly titled for its shimmering blend of post-punk, post-rock and heavy psychedelic influences, and “Paper Lanterns” which arrives squeezed btween album-opener “So Loud” and the New Wave-y uptempo push of “Enemy,” speaks as fluidly to that blend of styles as it does to, well, everything else. Fluidity is kind of the theme here.
Comprised of guitarist/vocalist Aage Hedensted, bassist Lars Madsen and drummer Andreas Bundgaard, Catch the Breeze — who, yes, would seem to have adopted their moniker from the Slowdive song — push further into progressive post-punk textures on “The Hill” and engage suitably crisp indie pop brightness on “Fields of Sunshine,” propelled subtly by Bundgaard‘s underlying drum tension, but the serenity of Glow‘s initial movement remains, and finds echo — or is it reverb; ha — as “Sleepwalker” meanders spaciously into the closing moment of the record, followed by the more uptempo “Dazed” and six-minute closer “Starlight,” which pulls together the various sides for one last engaging summary of the rather formidable spaces Glow covers in its still-manageable 43-minute span.
It’s interesting to note that the album, which is out March 16, was recorded at least mostly live. That blend puts a human element where one might not otherwise be when it comes to the sound of Catch the Breeze, and in terms of connecting the material to the listener’s consciousness as they make their way through, would seem to bridge that gap with that much more assuredness. Ultimately, despite being Catch the Breeze‘s first long-player, it’s that balance they strike between unabashed emotionalism, progressive sonic texturing, depth of mix and soothing melodies that makes Glow shine in immersive the manner it does.
I’m not entirely sure what loose-fitting-shirt-lady has to do with any of that in the video for “Paper Lanterns,” but the scenery sure is pretty and there’s some we’re-definitely-a-shoegaze-band-style live footage spliced in there as well so help you get a better idea of where Catch the Breeze are coming from, so yeah, have at it.
And of course, enjoy:
Catch the Breeze, “Paper Lanterns” official video
Paper Lanterns is the first single from the debut-album “Glow” by Catch The Breeze. Album out March 16. 2018 on Kundalini Records DK.
recorded at TapeTown in Aarhus, Denmark engineered and mixed by Rasmus Bredvig mastered by Emil Thomsen at ET Mastering The video was recorded by Christopher Carson Sinclair and edited by lead singer Aage Hedensted. Kinch.
With dense, broad layers of guitar, engaging bass lines and insisting drum grooves, ‘Paper Lanterns’ draws inspiration from genres as dream-pop and shoegaze. The lyrical video takes the viewer on a colorful flight over Jelshøj that melts into footage of the band performing onstage at Radar, a local venue in Aarhus.
Glow is the title of the debut album by Catch the Breeze. It draws on a wide range of genres from shoegaze, post punk to dreampop. Glow is released March 16th on Kundalini Records DK both digitally and on vinyl and is the follow-up to the bands self-titled EP from 2014.
The album is recorded at TapeTown in Aarhus, Denmark by Rasmus Bredvig in 2017. Through two intense and focused live sessions the band has achieved a raw, dynamic and organic sound that perfectly joins the band’s melodic, noisy and dreamy elements. The songs range from stark minimalism to adventurous compositions. Lush swells of swirling guitars are contrasted by tight drums and catchy bass. At the center stands the voice of Aage Hedensted Kinch, a deep baritone that communicates poetic and evocative lyrics that revolves around themes such as longing, night and inner-city life.
The vinyl pressing is by Nordsø Records, an ambitious pressing plant in Copenhagen, Denmark. The minimalistic cover is adorned by the artwork of Edie Sunday, an American fine-art photographer, who examines the area where the dreamy unconscious washes over the wake state. With a clear inspiration from movies, Sunday’s enchanting, almost surreal artwork perfectly express the enigmatic yet evocative character of both the lyrics and the music.
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 29th, 2018 by JJ Koczan
Back in December, Swedish heavy rock mainstays Greenleaf wrapped up a European tour alongside New Jersey exports The Atomic Bitchwax and London desert anthropologists Steak that would seem to have been the final installment of their Euro touring cycle for 2016’s triumphant Rise Above the Meadow (review here) on Napalm. That album, their sixth overall and first for Napalm Records, was an unmistakable forward step from 2014’s preceding Trails and Passes (review here), which introduced the next phase of the band as founding guitarist/songwriter/spearhead Tommi Holappa (see also: Dozer) brought in vocalist Arvid Jonsson and seemed to be a moment whereby the group got its collective feet under them as a result of that shift.
In March, Greenleaf — Holappa, Jonsson, drummer Sebastian Olsson and bassist Hans Fröhlich — will head to Australia for the first time in their almost-20-year history, but before they go, the band has revealed that they’ve begun work on their seventh studio album, tentatively-titled Hear the Rivers, with longtime producer (and former drummer) Karl Daniel Lidén for a release through Napalm later this year. Over the course of Greenleaf‘s history, each record has built off its predecessor in one way or another, and I’d expect no less from Hear the Rivers, the making of which Jonsson is documenting in a series of vlog updates, because it’s the future and apparently that’s how we do things now. Wish I knew that earlier. Probably could’ve saved me a lot of time typing. Alas.
One more to look forward to as we move deeper into this still-relatively-New-Year. With Holappa‘s long-established approach at its core, Greenleaf‘s songwriting tack is essentially flawless, and if they can capture a fraction of the energy they brought to Rise Above the Meadow — mind you, there’s zero reason to think they won’t given all the momentum they’ve built on tour since that record came out — Hear the Rivers has the potential to stand among 2018’s finest offerings. Can’t wait to hear it.
Find Greenleaf‘s Aussie dates and one of Jonsson‘s studio vlogs below. They’ve been appearing regularly on Greenleaf‘s Thee Facebooks page, if you’d like to keep up.
Greenleaf Australia tour: 03/02 The Bendigo Hotel Collingwood 03/03 Singing Bird Studios Frankston 03/04 Barwon Club Geelong 03/06 Rad Bar Wollongong 03/08 The Chippo Sydney 03/09 Crowbar Brisbane 03/10 Jive Adelaide
Posted in Bootleg Theater on January 26th, 2018 by JJ Koczan
Black Sabbath, The Eternal Idol (1987)
It’s taken me a really, really long time to come around to anything from the Tony Martin era of Black Sabbath. I’d say without hesitation it’s still a work in progress. In a way, it’s a matter of overcoming the narrative of the pre- and between-reunion years of Black Sabbath‘s ’80s and ’90s as a lost era for the heavy metal godfathers; a time spent wandering the wilderness for founding guitarist Tony Iommi that arguably began with 1983’s Born Again (discussed here) bringing in replacing Deep Purple‘s Ian Gillan to replace vocalist Ronnie James Dio, who himself took the reins following the band’s ultra-crucial first eight albums with Ozzy Osbourne. Aside from having an outright impossible standard to meet in following in the footsteps of three of rock and metal’s greatest frontmen ever, plus short-lived incarnations of the band as they worked with Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple) and Ray Gillen (Badlands), the Birmingham-born Martin was nowhere near the veteran presence of the likes of Iommi, who by 1987 was just coming off releasing the would’ve-been solo album Seventh Star with Hughes in 1986 and was long since the only remaining founding member of the band.
So what did Tony Iommi‘s Black Sabbath sound like on The Eternal Idol? Unsurprisingly, the band’s days of the innovative blend of heavy rock, dark psychedelia and blues that we’d come in the decades since to think of as doom were long gone. They’d settled into a mature, largely straightforward, hyper-produced commercial form of heavy metal, still very much driven by Iommi‘s guitar work, but without the loose swing and dynamic of their earliest days or the progressive majesty that emerged on the Dio-fronted albums, 1980’s Heaven and Hell and 1981’s Mob Rules. 30 years later, the snare from former KISS drummer Eric Singer sounds dated. Does that mean that The Eternal Idol and thus Martin‘s tenure were doomed from the start? If so, Martin still had a pretty good ride with the band. Admittedly, not every track on The Eternal Idol is a gem — “Nightmare” on side B feels like filler, despite being catchy, and though its last-minute uptick of energy is appreciated, the penultimate “Lost Forever” doesn’t accomplish much that “Hard Life to Love” and the following “Glory Ride” didn’t already bring to bear earlier on in dudely ’80s keyboard-drama — but even in opener “The Shining,” the subsequent “Ancient Warrior” one can hear shades the band working on a self-referential level, calling out pieces of the live version of “Heaven and Hell” (think “A big black shape…”) and “Children the Sea,” respectively. Which is to say nothing of the closing title-track’s semi-political bent — something Sabbath had proffered since “Hand of Doom” on 1970’s Paranoid — but rendered largely toothless on “The Eternal Idol” with a more generic, less pointed social critique. Ah, the Thatcher years.
So rather than necessarily pushing brazenly forward, as one might argue even the Gillan-fronted Born Again did in 1983 as arguably the harshest sounding record Sabbath ever put out, The Eternal Idol seems to be playing to form even as it presents a new incarnation of the band that would continue for the better part of the next decade, interrupted only by the temporary reunion with Dio for 1992’s triumphant Dehumanizer LP and corresponding tour. What, then is the appeal that finally won me over? Well, first of all, Martin is a killer vocalist. Having bassist Bob Daisley, who just a couple years before had played on the first couple Ozzy solo records, alongside Singer in the rhythm section didn’t exactly make for a powerhouse in the Butler/Ward tradition, but they could certainly hold down the straightforward roll of “Eternal Idol” or the motor-thrust of “Hard Life to Love,” and that allowed both Iommi and Martin to shine in their own performances, and while again, they’re not really breaking any ground, they did manage to give a more than solid showing of what Black Sabbath could be in the bizarre heavy metal climate that was the pre-grunge late ’80s. Big as their hair got — it got sort of big — Iommi was the spearhead of a prior generation, and The Eternal Idolwas the beginning point of the band becoming stable and sustainable for the better part of the next decade. Like Black Sabbath, Heaven and Hell and Born Again before it, it set a tone that future outings would follow. Granted, they’re hardly considered the pinnacle of the band, but without The Eternal Idol, no question the shape of 1989’s Headless Cross, 1990’s Tyr(my personal favorite of this era), 1994’s Cross Purposesand 1995’s Forbidden— which was the final Black Sabbath studio recording until the band got back with Ozzy to record the “Psycho Man” single in 1998 and then the Dio-fronted bonus tracks included with the 2007 compilation The Dio Years that prefaced the splintering off of what became for all too short a time Heaven and Hell.
I’m not saying it’s all gold, or that the decade Iommi spent working with Martin — split up in ’92 by the reunion with Dio, overshadowed subsequently by the reunion with Ozzy — is some magical lost trove of groundbreaking heavy rock and/or metal. But it’s got some choice Iommi riffing, and whatever else you can say about Martin‘s style being very post-Dio, he’s better at it than most, so what the hell is there to lose? Hardly the first point in their career Black Sabbath went through the motions to keep themselves on the road, and frankly, I’m not inclined to hold that against them, especially now that their career is — allegedly — over.
You certainly know the drill by now. Whatever your preconceptions about this stage of Sabbath‘s tenure, I hope you’ll give The Eternal Idola fair shot, and of course, I hope you enjoy.
Thanks for reading.
—
So far this week I’ve had The Pecan home alone — that is, sans The Patient Mrs. — for parts of three days. On each of those days, he has taken food from me out of a bottle. Given our prior experience in this regard, this is a huge fucking triumph. Huge. Yesterday, she came home while he was still eating and he kept going — didn’t even stop because she was there. No way that would’ve gone down like that before. He’d have immediately been like, “Fuck this, give me the real deal,” and gone for the boob. I get it, but was still frustrating when it happened.
What led to turning that corner? I kind of just realized he doesn’t want to be held by me when he’s eating. I’ve alternated putting him flat on his back on the playmat and in his sit-upright chair in the kitchen while giving him the bottle, and that’s been okay. I’ve also been having oranges with breakfast, so I’ve been kind of rubbing my finger on the pulp there and giving him a taste of the juice off my finger, just to get him more used to different flavors and taking food from me in general. He still takes bites of scrambled egg from me as well and we have some sweet potato in the fridge that we’ve been waiting to try, but we haven’t really needed to because it’s gone so well with the bottle. I’m not willing to say we’re 100 percent out of that woods, but it felt really, really fucking good this week to be able to feed my kid after three months of complete and total failure at it.
I guess I should follow up on last week’s Friday post. Shit was pretty dire feeling and I conveyed that in the most honest, truest-to-my-mindset language I could. I spent a good portion of last week thinking of death as an easier out than the way I was living. That’s just how it was. I don’t apologize for that, and I don’t expect sympathy, or “tough love” or whatever else. I can only be the person I am at a given moment and I can only write from that perspective about being in that place.
If you’re concerned, I’m under the care of several professionals. I have a nutritionist I’ve started seeing twice a week for eating disorder counseling — she’s making me eat; it’s fucking torture but I’m doing it — as well as a regular therapist and my primary care physician, who just this week put me on klonopin in addition to the 30mg anti-depressant dose I take every day. It seems to put me to sleep, which may prove somewhat inconvenient in the long run, but after being up half the nights last week I’m at very least looking at as something of a win for the immediate.
That’s where I’m at. I’m in a really, really hard place, working through a lot of really, really hard shit that I think unless you’ve been where I am you probably neither understand nor particularly give a shit about. Even then, probably questionable on that second part. But I’m doing the work I’m supposed to be doing. I’m doing what I’m told. I ate roasted potatoes the other night. I’ve been eating bread. Fruit. Lots of fruit. It’s madness. I never knew I was into pineapple. Or grapefruit. Let alone mixing them together like I just did. Sheer madness. It has me out of my head.
So that’s that. For what it’s worth, I had to put on a second pot of coffee just to get through those paragraphs. Light roast, but still.
Next week is packed. Here’s what’s in the notes for next week. It’s stupid how full it is:
MON.: Beneath Oblivion track premiere; new Ararat video.
TUE.: Malady full-album stream/review; other stuff I don’t want to give away yet.
WED.: MaidaVale video premiere; Six Dumb Questions with Somnuri.
THU.: Lowburn EP stream/review.
Fri.: Cataclysmic Events track stream.
Goes without saying that all this is subject to change with no notice whatsoever. I’ve kind of decided to nix my 2018 most-anticipated list for the time being. Not enough hours in the day and I’ve got a lot going on otherwise, but if I can still make it happen even in some preliminary way — a list of names — I will try to do so. I’ve also started kicking around the notion of doing more t-shirts if there’s a way I don’t have to ship them out, because that was awful. We’ll see where I end up on that. I said “never again” on merchandise which would seem to make it inevitable, right?
If you’re interested or not, I’ll probably keep you posted.
Thanks again for reading, and please have a great and safe weekend. Don’t forget to hit up the forum and the radio stream.
