SOUNDTRACK: DAWN OF MIDI-Dysnomia (2013).
I heard about this disc while listening to The Organist podcast. (Episode 6) I didn’t know anything about Dawn of Midi, but I understand they were/are a kind of improvisational jazz band (piano, contrabass and drums). But don’t stop reading yet. Dysnomia (between this and Method of the W.O.R.M.’s Cicatrix, I am certainly learning a lot of new words) is certainly jazzy. But it doesn’t feel like jazz exactly. In fact, I would never have guessed that they were playing real instruments.
The album is 47 minutes with 9 songs. They are all instrumental and more or less flow into each other. And as I say, I never would have imagined that it was just three instruments playing the music. Not because it sounds weird–there’s nothing particularly unusual sounding about the record. But because it is so precise.
And indeed, the piano doesn’t really sound like a piano (it’s a little muted), but the other two instruments are quite clearly drum and bass. And yet it’s the rhythms and textures of the songs that are so unusual. The songs are minimal, true, but they are complex in that minimalism. So while there’s repeated piano notes, there’s complex drum patterns. And the songs morph and change over the course of the record. And not just from track to track but within a song as well.
Without going into great musical detail, there’s not a lot to say about the individual tracks. As I say, it’s a lot of repetition, but there’s enough morphing that it never gets boring. Maybe the piano is the emphasis for these few minutes, then a snare drum takes over. Or the beat shifts or speeds up. It’s really cool. And it’s really hard to believe that these three guys are playing this live and not with machines.
I really can’t say enough about this record. I didn’t expect to like it as much as I do, but I find that I can’t stop listening to it.
Check it out at their bandcamp site.
[READ: July 17, 2015] I am Princess X
Sarah brought this home from the library and said that I would like it and, as usual, she was right.
The story is about May and Libby, two young girls (fifth grade?) who are thrown together (they don’t know each other but are both skipping gym class) and form a cool bond. Libby is a great artist, and while they are sitting in the Kindergarten playground, the little kids come over and ask her to draw things. Soon enough, Libby draws a princess (I like that it was suggested by a boy). She’s wearing red high tops, a crown and cape and has a cool katana sword (I must say this has to be the smoothest playground ever if she could get that much detail out of playground chalk).
The girls name her Princess X and since May can’t draw, she comes up with stories about her. And soon enough, Libby and May have binders full of the Princess’ adventures.
As with a lot of YA books, there’s a horrific tragedy that follows. Libby and her mom are in a car and her mom drives them off a bridge where she and Libby die. (I know!). May always thought there was something suspicious about the whole thing–Libby had a closed casket–but since May was a little girl no one paid her any mind. Libby’s dad fled Seattle and that was the end of contact for May.
Meanwhile, May’s parents divorced and may moved back to the South (people in Seattle tease her about her accent). But she does get to come up to Seattle to visit her dad from time to time.
And this time, when she’s walking around old haunts, she sees a sticker on a window. It is Princess X and it even says “I am Princess X” What the heck? Well, when Libby’s dad sold the house, all of their Princess X stuff was given to goodwill. So it must be someone who found it and stole their ideas. But what if it’s something else?
It takes her a little too long to go online to discover the iamprincessx.com website (the real website is a surprisingly disappointing tumblr account), but when she does, she finds a web comic. And it seems to have a lot of information that only May and Libby could know. But it also has a kind of origin story that was not anything that May came up with.
May enlists the help of a hacker named Patrick (who goes by Hat Trick, which I rather like). He’s a fan of Princess X (which has become hugely popular in the last six months) and would love to know who is behind it too. And soon they start piecing clues together (which only May could figure out) which makes it seem like Libby is alive and that maybe the car accident was no accident.
The story is interspersed with pages from the webcomic, which is pretty neat. And there are some wonderful puzzles to put together (although the reader wouldn’t really be able to figure them out I don’t think). I found the book quite exciting and a lot of fun.
May and Trick meet some interesting characters, learn a little bit about snooping, take a tour of the Underground (which a friend of mine who just went to Seattle told me all about) and even wind up getting shot at. As well as nearly run over (a chase scene in downtown Seattle is pretty interesting). And as I said there is a lot of excitement.
I had a few problems with the story. There is literally no way that May didn’t devour that webcomic as soon as she saw it. In the story it is suggested that she is reading it in small doses. Baloney, she would have read the whole thing in an hour. I realize that is done to set up the pacing and all, but it was hard to imagine. There were a few other things that felt like they were there more for pacing than for “reality.” And that’s okay, I think. But i do hate when you get bumped out of a book because reality looms in.
But those are mostly minor quibbles. This was a fun book, easy to read and very cleverly thought out.
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