Deep Voices 135

Deep Voices 135 on Spotify
Deep Voices 135 on Apple Music

A few days ago, I couldn’t figure out what to listen to. I was walking around early one morning. It was cold and I had a lot to do. Most of what I’ve listened to in the past several months has been relatively gentle, and, if not, at least relatively human. But I wanted something tough and something synthetic. I didn’t want to identify with anyone singing to me, didn’t want to be consoled. I guess I wanted to feel angry. Or it wasn’t that I wanted to feel angry, it’s that I realized I was angry, and didn’t really know exactly why or what to do with that feeling. But I knew I didn’t want to dismiss it.

I put on a new EP on techno, Hyperobject by Rizio, on the All Centre label. It had come out earlier that day, I’d gotten a Bandcamp email about the release and I thought I’d check it out, great label, and it turned out to be exactly what I was looking for. It’s intense dance music with a moody flair; it reminded me, for some reason, of Batman. Maybe I just wanted to live in a lair and be someone else. At least to be one of those people who happily dresses in all black. I am too fond of blue.

It was a long weekend, it’s been a long couple of months, and a long life. The eternal music question for me is whether or not to use music to reflect desolation or to counteract it. Part of the reason I’ve always loved music so much is its power to do the latter. I’m a sensitive person in all senses of the word, which means that I find art to be an effective medium to steer me in its direction, to be my rudder. It’s an easy fix to put on something positive and then feel that way, or to put on something mopey and feel like you deserve your wallowing. But anger is a whole other thing I’ve never quite figured out. Try to avoid anger for long enough and it’ll remind you it’s still there, like a prowler hiding in the corner.

Hyperobject was synthetic and tactile to satisfy a desire to feel like I was pummeling the world while I was actually just walking down the street, waving to my neighbors. I’ve been thinking about anger and angry music a lot lately, especially as I wrap up the final draft of my book. I’m relieved to be done but angry I had to do it in the first place. It’s called Rise Above, and it’s about my life, particularly the short time that was my son’s life, and the time immediately after he died. Which extends not quite to the present day, but very close.

It’s not a subtle book, but it’s not particularly lively either. It has some jokes, a level of earnestness that I could see coming to regret. But it is just an honest account of how I came to the conclusion that I needed to live and that, if I was going to, I should attempt to operate with as much grace as I could muster. I urge you to do the same. To attempt. It is a low bar but it is a bar nonetheless.

I once talked to a woman who wrote a novel and she told me she hopes no one learns anything from it. This is not that kind of book. I guess I am not that kind of person.

Rise Above comes out next summer. It doesn’t even have a cover yet. But it will. It’s a strange thing to discuss, the eventual transfer of this Google doc that helped me keep it together being available to the public in 3-D form. But so much of it is a tribute to the art that helped me along the way, and so this is my little contribution, perhaps a way to say thank you.

Regular Deep Voices readers may have noticed my absence. While writing this book and not working full time, I was able to set time aside to send weekly newsletters. But time ran out and I needed, for various reasons, to rejoin the world. I’ll do my best to send Deep Voices out when I can, but for the foreseeable future there’s not going to be a regular cadence. I’ve turned off paid subscriptions. I’ll warn everyone if I turn them back on.

This playlist is some things I’ve been enjoying very recently! I hope you’ll like them too. The Wicca Phase song, in particular, is one of his best. His entire new album is a warm, country-tinged affair, which then ends with a droning-organ treatise on aging and regret, a touching, sweet song. “I was a runner once,” he sings. He can be again.