Book: Indecision by Benjamin Kunkel

Title: Indecision
Author: Benjamin Kunkel
ISBN: 1400063450
Publisher: Random House
Year: 2005
List Price: $21.95

Review: A lot of things have already been and will continue to be said about this book. A portrait of post-9/11 displacement and anxiety. A farce on the pharmaceutical industry. A new kind of bohemian adventure novel.

While all of those things ring true, what struck me most about Kunkel's Indecision was the bull's-eye accuracy with which it depicts the aimless twenty-something male in contemporary America. I feel that I just may be one such male, so I feel like I have every right to pass this judgment.

The book begins with twenty-eight year old Dwight B. Wilmerding, philosophy graduate and recent ex-employee of the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, on his way to Ecuador to visit an ex-lover of sorts for no particular reason.

That is just Dwight's problem. Reason. Constantly falling back on mental masturbation (as well as other forms) and philosophical pondering, Dwight can't seem to make up his mind. Even the automatic choice between coffee or tea seems impossible.

Under the influence of a new miracle drug that is supposed to aid the user in making decisions, Dwight lets the world take him where it will until the drug's effects kick in.

Along the way, Dwight travels through the jungles of Ecuador with a beautiful Dutch woman and through his memory with a new understanding of the meaning of his own life.

Traveling through South American without knowing any Spanish, leaving a girlfriend and family behind without any concern for anyone but himself and leaving decisions up to the pharmaceutical wonder in his pocket, Dwight gives the reader an inside look at what it means to be an irresponsible twenty-eight year old male. At times, it is hard to tell whether Dwight is stuck in childhood or on the cusp of a breakdown.

Though the novel falls apart at the end with tangential comedy, self absorbed not-so-cleverness, and no real relevance to the rest of the story, this itself offers further insight.

Recommended reading for any man stuck in his twenties (no matter how old you are), though anyone will be able to laugh and cringe at the flawed reasoning behind Dwight's actions.

This book might even cause you to make a few decisions of your own. I know it convinced me that I should learn to speak Spanish…quick!

Rating: 3.75 / 5

Buy one at Amazon.com!

Live: Dirty Three - 10/15/2005 - Chicago, IL

Performer: Dirty Three
Location: Metro - Chicago, IL
Date: 10/15/2005

Review: Australia's Dirty Three don't tour the U.S. very often. So when I heard they were embarking on a whirlwind six-date tour with one stop in Chicago, I made a note inthe back of my skull that this would be yet another moving, earth-shattering music experience that I would miss. The stars seemed to align in my fovor though, as I learned that not only was the concert scheduled for 11:30 PM, but they were also including the opening act of Freakwater.

So, despite having to work my weekend job as a water... Despite having to accompany my friend back to his apartment to retrieve his mis-pocketed ID... Despite waiting an absurdly long time for the CTA's Blue Line... Despite all of this, I was able to make the show in time to catch a few songs by the opner and the entirety of Dirty Three's Set.

Freakwater made a good impression on me. Two southern-sounding women strumming and singing a throwback country style set reminiscent of Marianne Faithful and a bit of Dolly Parton thrown in. Also on stage, playing violin with the girls was Dirty Three's Mick Turner, giving the perfectly-sized audience a prelude of sorts of what was to come.

When the Dirty Three finally took the stage, they did so casually. Jim white at his sparse drum set, Warren Ellis and Mick Turner both sporting violins and a Chicago native playing guitar with them to form a quartet that was preparing to surprise everyone present for the show.

Ellis began the eventing by introducing the band as a band, not individually, forming an image in my mind of the Dirty Three as a living, breathing musical entity beyond individual musicians. As the show went, I realized how the band's music has an unspeakable quality that I haven't heard replicated before. Even though I have witnessed Mick's playing before with the Bad Seeds, this was something different altogether. As the band got their wits about them, they played a few songs from their new albu, Cinder, which were moderate, melodic, meandering pieces that built to an anticipatrory crescendo.

Being most familiar with the Dirty Three's 2003 release, She Has No Strings Apollo, I was expectinga mood-ladedn evening of music to wash over me in gentle, dire waves. Nothing could have prpared me for the controlled chaos that shortly followed.

It was with the song, The Zither Player, that the energy of both the band and audience started to heighten and converge. White's drumming is some of them ost simultaneously frenetic and masterful that I have ever seen live. Armed with little more than a snare, a bass and a small collection of cymbals, he made some of the most apocalyptic sounds these ears have heard. Throughout, Ellis' bow was slapping the strings of his instrument, drawing from it a sound like a distorted stand-up bass.

Throughout all of this, the most amazing feat on stage was Mick Turner's ability to keep the rhythm of the song crawling on, even when the rhythm was lost and unplayed behind the noise.

As the night wound on, each member of the band continued to pour their sweat into the music. You could tell that the medium-sized crowd suited them and that they wanted to play these songs. Each tune gew larger and noisier. I witnessed audience members crying from the energy in the air as I wandered from balcony to stage-front. Since these people weren't young kids, I have to view this as a testament to the power of the Dirty Three's unique power as a band and not just raging hormones.

The band's set ended with Ellis laying on the stage, cradling his instrument, slowly building up the chaotic harmonies of the song, Sue's Last Ride until each member was playing their instrument like a guitar and, somehow keeping the noise inside the realm of control, managing to pull unique sounds out with every strum.

We only had to wait a miute or two before the band reappeared happily to the calls for an encore.

What followed was a 10+minute rendition of Indian Love Song which still resonates inside me.

Rating: 4.5 / 5

Dirty Three Discography:
click links to buy from insound.com

- Sad & Dangerous - 1994 - CD
- Dirty Three - 1995 - CD
- Horse Stories - 1996 - CD LP
- Ocean Songs - 1998 - CD
- UFKUKO - 1998
- Whatever You Love You Are - 2000 - CD
- Lowlands - 2000 (limited release)
- In The Fishtank #7 (with Low) - CD 12" vinyl
- She Has No Strings Apollo - 2003 - CD LP
- Cinder - 2005 - CD LP

Music: Dirty Three - Cinder

Artist: Dirty Three
Title: Cinder
Label: Touch & Go
Released: 2005

Review: My friend once told me that every time he listens to the Dirty Three, he feels like crying, though once he put on one of their records while making love, and felt the most beautiful happiness and warmth inside. I don't think I could describe the music of this Australian band any better. I've described them to the uninitiated as 'rock n' roll chamber music,' but from now on I think I will just tell people that the Dirty Three make music to cry and make love to.

From the first song of their new album Cinder to the last, the Dirty Three take the listener on an emotional journey of loss and discovery. The songs are shorter this time around, allowing for a story-arc that leads the album from pre-apocalyptic optimism to emblazoned emotional warfare and finally reticent reflection. If you've ever had the opportunity to see the Three in concert, you know that they can rock and have witnessed violinist Warren Ellis pull unearthly sounds out of his instrument, but Cinder just may be the first recorded proof of how noisy the Australian trio can be. With the song The Zither Player, the album begins to take us up so far until we fear we may come crashing down at any minute. Cat Power's Chan Marshall seems to be there to reassure us of our safety in the song Great Waves, but shortly after her lullaby voice washes over us, the undertow begins to pull us back down. A few songs later we are drowning in the cacophony of Doris where Jim White's drumming and Mick Turner's guitar work is so powerful it feels as if it may pierce us. And just behind all of the noise these three make, there is a regal bagpipe player weaving in between them, joining when the mood seems fit, making this song the highlight of the album.

Similar to the band's previous release, She Has No Strings Apollo, Cinder leaves the listener with a chill in the spine. The experimentation seems to be primarily in the song length on this album, and for a group that has given us so much in the way of atmospheric post-rock, this is a welcome and refreshing turn. The last track of the album, In Fall, is a plucked and bowed hopeful number that leaves us feeling that things are changing ever so slowly. When the music stops, we realize that slowly is fast enough.

Rating: 4 / 5

Buy this release from Insound.com: CD | LP

Music: Piano Overlord - Torture EP

Artist: Piano Overlord
Title: Torture EP
Label: Money Studies
Released: 2005

Review: Piano Overlord is yet another side-project of Glitch-Hop-Downtempo-Spanish-Folk-Acoustic-Electro-Freakout-Jazz musician Guillermo Scott Heron, otherwise known under the moniker Prefuse 73.

This time around, P73 is concentrating on the downbeat, though not as concentrated as on some of the Savath & Savalas recordings. Started as a sort of karmic debt payment plan to the Money Studies label, the idea was for P73 to restrain himself by using only sounds from pianos both electric and acoustic to see what kind of sounds he could bend, break and stretch out of them. I'm not quite sure if this equation has held through to this second EP release, but whatever the equation, it is an enjoyable one.

Both of the tracks on the A-side are mellow enough to play at dinner and interesting and cool enough to drop into a set during a lull at a party. The highlight of the EP comes with track two, "the overlord meets adventure time in sleepy keys," which is a compilation and confrontation with Daedelus and Frosty. Each musician manages to keep the mood cool. The listener is engaged in a hip-hop chess game by candlelight instead of an all-out war.

Side B of the EP contains two collaborations/remixes. The first, featuring the underrated rapper/multi-instrumentalist Count Bass D, is a chilled and stirred, not shaken, martini of a track highlighted by clipped and cut samples. The sampling and production on this track is the closest this EP gets to the Prefuse 73 equation, but that distance is still far past the horizon.

The last track on the EP is by far the weakest. A remix by Money Studies' own producer Blu Jemz ends up sounding like a leftover BS2000 track with a forced toughness pushing it's way through the flow of the rap. Money Studies is a great label, and Blu Jemz has got style when it comes to cuttin' and producin', but this time out, he dropped it. But shit, if I had my own record label, I'd remix something on every release too... Gotta get the name out.. and don't read me wrong, Blu Jemz is a name to remember.

One throwaway track among the four isn't so bad. This isn't Prefuse's best work, but it's worth grabbing a copy. If you are a Prefuse 73 fan (and if you saw him on the Surrounded by Silence tour, I know you are), you already have this. If you don't have it, good luck finding it, because everywhere I look, this EP is sold out. Don't worry too much though, Piano Overlord is realeasing a full length collection of all of his EP tracks plus a few others in a month or two.

Rating: 3.25 / 5

image provided by a link to Turntablelab.com

Book: The Week You Weren't Here

Title: The Week You Weren't Here
Author: Charles Blackstone
ISBN: 0972336346
Publisher: Low Fidelity Press
Year Published: 2005
Price: $15.00

Review: Charles Blackstone’s writing reminds me of the Kerouac I love and helps me forget the Kerouac I don’t. A story about a young writer smack-dab in the middle of that stage where a person moves from developing several crushes a day to developing several genuine romantic interests each day. Unlike most first novels about struggling writers as lovers, The Week You Weren’t Here is a novel about a struggling lover who writes. The stream of consciousness prose takes the writer deeper into the obsessive mind of someone who might just have a chance at love, but doesn’t know what to do with that chance, let alone all of the other complications life provides. Blackstone’s exploration of a questioning mind not only provides you with an understanding of what makes a creative person tick, but also with a well-crafted and enjoyable read. This book reminds me of why I read fiction in the first place.

Go ahead…buy yourself a copy.

Rating: 4 / 5

cover image provided by a link to Amazon.com

Book: Shostakovich and Stalin

Title: Shostakovich and Stalin
Author: Solomon Volkov
ISBN: 0375410821
Publisher: Knopf
Price: $30.00

Review: A sweeping history of the years of Stalin’s rule told through the accurate, but complex mirror of history: arts and culture. Dmitri Shostakovich was a small and unassuming young composer with an unbelievable passion for his music. Experimental qualities in his compositions garnered respect from not only the Russian intelligentsia, but also the west. However, the man who everyone in 20th century Russia begrudgingly called “uncle” was not interested in respect for the arts, but in adoration and the lull of cultural experience which could be transformed into political power. Unlike Lenin before him, Stalin understood the power of art and music in addition to rigid political tyranny.

For anyone interested in Russian history, Volkov paints a picture of Stalin that is rarely seen elsewhere. We catch surprising glimpses of the stone-faced leader’s heart in the passages describing his love for opera and film. Yet, despite his own preference, Stalin kept a tight fist and close eye on the Russian artists of the time. It was with Shostakovich’s Opera “Lady Macbeth of Mtensk” that the young composer became a high-profile enemy/voice of Russian society.

Shostakovich’s most groundbreaking opera was denounced as “Muddle Instead of Music” in Pravda for it’s anti-populist passages and formalist themes. From that point on, the artist’s passion was a matter of life or death. In reluctantly learning how to play the political game, Shostakovich went on to become one of Stalin’s musical darlings and even won the Stalin Prize twice. The compromises and restraint Shostakovich had to take led to physical and mental sickness and constant anxiety. However, all of the pressure may have led the composer to a greatness that he may never have reached otherwise.

Anyone interested in Russian literature, music or art will do well by reading this book. Frequent appearances by the likes of Pushkin, Pasternak, Tchaikovsky, Bulgakov, Dostoyevsky and others will bring life to the Russian art history classes you may have fell asleep in. Loose comparisons between the Stalin Prize and our own Presidential Medal of Freedom are brought to mind throughout the book. But most importantly, this dual biography is an essential exploration of the life of any struggling artist and the power artists can have over society and history as a whole.

Rating: 4.25 / 5

cover photo provided by a link to Amazon.com

Book: The i Tetralogy

Title: The i Tetralogy
Author: Mathias B. Freese
ISBN: 1587364042
Publisher: Hats Off Books
Price: $26.95

Review: Honest, abrasive and engaging... okay... enough with the Ney-Yorker-esque blurbs, even though they are true. Honestly, this is the most disturbing account of the holocaust I have ever read. If I didn't know any better, I would think Mathias B. Freese had gone through this experience himself.

Told in first-person, we are led through the tunnels of human despair and survival. Base human emotion, action and reaction are uncensored and laid bare, making The i Tetralogy more than just another novel about the holocaust. This book is an exploration of what a civilized human being is capable of when s/he is pushed and the resulting guilt (or lack of) we feel for our convictions. Not only in action, but in thought, this book reflects the horror we all have inside of us and reminds us of the fragility and importance of our lives.

Even if you've read Elie Wiesel's Night, Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago, or others, this book will surprise you with raw language and emotive power.

Rating: 4.75 / 5

cover photo provided by a link to Amazon.com