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frontcut · 6 years

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How Do You Like Your Blue-Eyed Boy Now Mister Death?

A fine rain had begun to fall. My friend Noah was wearing a red wind breaker that he had zipped up over his sweatshirt and a grey beanie tucked underneath. This made him look like an Eskimo, or an arctic explorer, or like a turtle. A turtle mostly. We’d set out to skateboard, disregarding the fact that it was beginning to rain. We weren’t ready to call off our one trip, just three nights in San Fransisco, by a few light drops of rain.

We had just left off our backpacks at a friend’s who had been renting a tiny, and I mean tiny, studio apartment in the city. It was near Haight-Ashbury, the basement/storage area of a large Victorian home, and you had to squeeze in between an alley through the sides of two houses and then descended into an underground room to access it. Two people lived in the space, splitting the deadly rent, and Noah and I were going to crash on their L-shaped couch, for the first night. It was our friend Westin’s place. He said we were free to crash there for the night, but couldn’t have us the next two nights. Fine by us, we hand’t planned that far anyway.

We flew in at 6pm, skated around the city, found a skatepark, and then hit a coffeeshop Noah knew about. We continued our skate for a few more hours, with the caffeine buzzing through our veins, and then headed to Westin’s place to drop off our backpacks. Westin generously served us glasses of water and hung out as we caught up with the latest in each others lives. The three of us weren’t close, but we each had a mutual friend that brought us together. An unspoken understanding that because we were both friends with this one person, we had to be cool. He told us he’d leave the key under the mat because we were going back out, and as we left, he bade us farewell, telling us we were free to come back whenever. It was 11 pm.

The rain began. Westin’s place sat on top of a mellow grade hill, but one that would get you going on a skateboard.

“Whadd’ya you think?” Noah asked me.

“It’s not too bad. We might slide out and the water might kill our bearings, but if it’s sunny tomorrow, they’ll dry out.”

“Any idea where you want to go?”

“It’s all foreign to me.”

He smiled.

“All right then, try to keep up.”

He took off in a little sprint, darting down the hill as he slammed down his board, letting his wheels rip as they hit the asphalt. I quickly took off after him. I slammed my board down and quickly caught up to speed with Noah. Drops of rain collected on my glasses and I suddenly felt a rush of freedom and speed.

Noah graciously bombed hills. With ease he was able to control his speed and weave through cars, and if a stop sign came up, he’d drag his back foot making sure not to kill all of his speed, and with another push blast through an intersection.

On busier streets, he’d zip right in between cars, his arms parallel to his board so as not to hit a car’s rear-view mirrors. When cars would stop at a red light, we’d try to time it so as we approached the intersection, we’d hit the light right as it turned. We’d fly past the stopped cars and push on down the next hill. Each hill would end in a little hump that’d serve to slow us down, and when the cars were driving behind us they’d be forced to slowed down as the light turned yellow, allowing us to push through the intersection and skate down the next hill all to ourselves, Noah and I sliding and criss-crossing back and forth down the wide open street.

It took me a few hills to get my bearings. The weaving through the cars, the timing of the lights, pushing myself to go for it, was an all together different form of skateboarding that I had yet to learn. Noah’s skill with this type of street skating couldn’t have been learned at the skatepark, this came from something other than simply practice or natural talent. How was he able to shoot in between cars and intersections? Or hop up and down the sidewalk, push at a fast speed…with this much ease?

There was a time he lived in New York City. I had been driving us back from the skatepark, to his shared three bedroom house in Carlsbad, when he began to tell me about his time there. Fixed gear bicycles. Nights. Cars. Sober-living.

Noah rolled up his jeans and revealed the knee on his right leg.

“I’ve really never shown you my knee?”

I couldn’t remember if he had ever shown me his knee, but he certainly hadn’t. The thing looked like a shriveled up baseball. The knee cap was dented and bruised, his olive skin sank into small hollow indents where bone was missing, and somehow, the knee functioned. This mangled joint, bringing his shin and thigh together, allowed him to walk, to skateboard. A pale white scar ran down the length of half his shin.

“Ho-ly shit.”

“I can’t believe I haven’t showed you. I was in a car accident, during my senior year, where I broke both my legs.”

Broke both his legs?

I turned from looking at the road to look at him. He was smiling, oddly enough, recounting the time. As he began his story, I found my hand leaving the steering wheel in order to grip my knee.

“My roommate Jesse and I were riding our fixed gears one night through the city. We were both twenty-one, but you know, we had both dedicated ourselves to being straight edge, so we’d do all kinds of shit other than going out to the bars or getting high. We'd ride all over the city, searching for hills to skid down and coffeeshops to raid. Cars were never much of an issue. I quickly got good at timing lights, anticipating cars, and committing. 90% of the time it’s all about committing. If you hesitate, it’s over.”

I nodded. I imagined myself on a fixed gear bicycle, the gears not being able to idle, no brakes, and a thin metal frame against a two ton machine of twisting metal and firing pistons.

“Jesse and I were doing a run that we usually did by our place, a ten block loop that brought us down a hill that funneled into a one lane underpass. It was brief, only about half block, but when you went fast enough through it, the rattling of the chain and the speed of our bikes made a hollow rushing sound, like being inside the tube of a wave. Everything else goes silent and all you hear is that sound.”

“Sounds fun.”

“Oh it was. We could do it over and over, only you’d have to time everything just right. There couldn’t be any cars in the tunnel and you’d have to hit the light right as it turned green, in order for no cars to enter while you were inside, or else it’d fuck everything up.”

“Anything else inside would overpower the sound of your bikes?”

“Yeah, it was five seconds tops. That’s why we usually rode at night, to have these things all to ourselves.”

He turned from looking out the window. His eyes, like clear green ocean water, beamed at me. Whatever he was about to tell me spoke volumes about who he was, and I’m not sure how I could tell this, but I felt that I was about to learn something about him, that not very many people knew.

“It was a really busy night. Maybe, no definitely, too busy for us to be riding that night. Jesse and I were waiting at the top of the hill standing over the frames of our bikes, resting with our arms crossed on our handle bars. The tunnel lay at the bottom of the hill, but at that time, the tunnel was packed with cars. But at some point, Jesse spotted an opening…a brief lapse in the traffic, a pack of cars stopped at the opposite end of the tunnel, and the light before the entrance about to turn yellow, then red. Jesse squinted his eyes at the tunnel and said, ‘If we can hit the tunnel right as those last cars exit and beat the first cars to go, we can get it. We’ll just have to fly.’ I recognized the opportunity and responded. ‘Let’s do it.’ In that instant, he took off. I quickly stood on my pedals, thrusting myself forward. Jesse kept his eyes on the tunnel and was timing the cars just at the end. He wasn’t skidding, slowing down at all, but was propelling himself faster and faster…

“I wasn’t as skilled at fixed gear riding as Jesse. I was a few paces behind him, but unused to maintaining this speed. My pedals were moving faster and faster. As cars began to come up the hill out of the tunnel, I tried to get one skid in to check my speed, but the moment I tried to push back with my right foot and pull up with my left, the pedals kicked both my feet right out of the loops. They were revolving too quick, and I wasn’t strong enough. Jesse entered the tunnel and I lost sight of him.

“Suddenly, as I was rapidly coasting down the hill, a large sedan, a black Lexus, with the cities lights reflecting off it’s freshly waxed paint, made an abrupt left turn, cutting out of the line of cars exiting the tunnel. The driver must’ve been tired of the traffic, figuring he’d do a u-turn and find another route. He didn’t see me coming down the other lane. I had no control over my bike; the pedals revolving, my legs idly hanging above the pedals, there was nothing I could do. He made the cut a meter ahead of me, I only had a flash of a moment. My bike slammed into his car, and somehow I managed to push myself upwards, propelling my body over the roof of the car, but not completely. My knees clipped the passenger windows, shattering them, and sent my carcass flipping over the car. From there, all I can remember was a weightless feeling, like entering zero gravity.”

We were headed down Highway 101. The expansive blue ocean glittered out the window to the right, and beachfront properties of assorted styles stood to our left. A block away, approached Noah and Jesse’s spacious three bedroom flat, only a stone’s throw from the sea.

“You flew straight over the car? And smashed the windows? Those windows aren’t easy to break.”

“I destroyed them. I hovered in the air, the distance between myself and the ground only increasing, and after a moment, gravity slammed me back down and I cracked my helmet through.”

“Fuck.”

“It went black for a while, but I remember a single brief point of consciousness. The man in the Lexus, donned in a silver suit and gold tie, came rushing out of his car. I glanced at my legs. One was somehow fine, spare a few scrapes, but the other was pouring blood. Shards of glass protruded out of my knee. Clear sharp triangles dipped in blood. Steam was coming off the asphalt. I tried calling out for Jesse, but I couldn’t make a sound. Tracheobronchial Injury, as I came to find out, like getting the wind knocked out of you with a battering ram.”

“Christ, what was going through your head?”

“Nothing. I was a complete blank. But I had a dream, I think, that I could see the whole thing; my twisted body lying on the asphalt, paramedics surrounding me, and Jesse, on his knees, wailing.”

By now we were back at his place. I had turned off the engine and stayed put in the car, facing him as he continued his story.

“I didn’t feel anything. If I was dying, then I didn’t think it. I didn’t think about my family, my girlfriend, or my friends. I didn’t feel bad leaving them. I remember, like a film, hovering there over my body, perfectly content and happy. Isn’t that awful? But I felt the sensation of death. And it wasn’t a tight grip, it wasn’t a grip at all. I was completely free. But I realized, that I wasn’t dead, just suspended there, and I would soon return. In that state, I wasn’t certain of my death, or else I would have felt differently. Leaving everyone so early, not getting to say goodbye, suddenly torn from them forever. I would have felt terrible, not for myself, but for them. I don’t know what this dream, or reality was, but in it I knew I would wake, and that this wasn’t my real death.”

“If it wasn’t a dream, then you’re talking about your soul. You have a memory of actually being your soul.”

“Well-ll,” Noah said, laughing.

A tear welled up in his eye.

“I was so happy I wasn’t dead. I knew I was going to re-enter, or wake up or something. I was going to see everyone I loved again, I was going to see Jesse, Mom, my girlfriend Iris. I could give them all a hug. I’d have another chance to enjoy everything one more time.”

As Noah told me this, a lot started to make sense about his character and how he lived his life. At only twenty-four he was married. He was always positive, rarely got upset, or let things frustrate him. And if something did, it would have to be some nasty person who didn’t recognize what they had.

A certain aura of happiness radiated off of him. He looked young for his age, like he was still a teenager. Alive and happy, like a child getting to play outside in the hot summer sun.

“I woke up”, Noah said, “In the hospital with my dad asleep by the bedside, loudly snoring with an opened book lying across his chest. I couldn’t help but laugh. I didn’t stop laughing until he woke up and hugged me.”

I’m sitting on the tile floor of SFO, reading The Beach, which I picked up from Alley Cat Books yesterday. Noah is asleep on the airport sofa across from me, and I realize that something inside me has changed. Without a plan, everything had worked out. Our cheap flight brought us to San Francisco; we skated every night, we tasted all the coffeeshops, we entered all the bookstores, and we never slept. A potent dose of living. I look at Noah’s face under the hood of his red windbreaker, a pool of drool collecting on his arm. Suddenly, I recall his one experience with death. His wailing friend, his strewn body, his blood, and the steaming asphalt. He smiled as he recounted the time, the time he faced death, and was allowed to live.

…and it wasn’t a tight grip. It wasn’t a grip at all.

written by Brandon Parks

accompanied photo: Jason Dill by unknown.

this story is a work of fiction.

#frontcut #fiction

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frontcut · 6 years

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Let’s Eat Grandma: I’m All Ears

On Let's Eat Grandma's, I'm All Ears, they shoot for stardom with an incredibly daring arrangement of synth pop and psych. I'm All Ears is the 19 year old British duo's second LP release and it is leaps and bounds more progressive than that of their first. The album comes somewhat out of nowhere and is clearly one of the greatest unexpected albums from a group in the last few years. The group consists of Jenny Hollingsworth and Rosa Walton, two 19 year old girls from the UK that are destine to be in the limelight in the very near future.

“LEG maneuvers through sonic

structures that at times put the

listener in a wave of psychedelia

and in the next breath into a dance

groove daring anyone who hears

it to get up and dance.”

The album is a continuum to the two exploring psychedelic sounds that they explored on their first LP, however, I'm All Ears steps into the realm of futuristic pop that many of their predecessors have strongly associated themselves with. LEG maneuvers through sonic structures that at times put the listener in a wave of psychedelia and in the next breath into a dance groove daring anyone who hears it to get up and dance. The track Falling Into Me is the album’s most dance driven song and the best example of the duos ability to transition through a song seamlessly touching as much upon psychedelia as disco dance pop.

LEG did have help on the album from artists such as SOPHIE and Faris Badwin of The Horrors. SOPHIE's influence on the album is undeniable especially on the track Hot Pink, one that she co-produced with the group. The album shimmers in glistening synths while still retaining some grit from the reverberated out guitars on tracks such as Cool and Collected, creating an album that showcases the duos ability to understand and create an incredibly broad range of music.

“(LEG) successfully prove many people

wrong that two 19 year old girls could

create an album as densely packed

with themes of gender identity and

the limitations of age.”

The teen duo have stepped up and delivered an album that proves their prodigal abilities at not only creating deeply layered and impactful music but also in their ability to successfully prove many people wrong that two 19 year old girls could create an album as densely packed with themes of gender identity and the limitations of age. LEG are teenagers that are beyond mature for their age and are going to be a mainstay in the future of indie pop.

written by Reid Duncan

#lets eat grandma #im all ears #jenny hollingworth #rosa walton #frontcut

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frontcut · 6 years

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Koi: The Golden Shower

12:41 A.M.

The boy looked inside the cup and saw his reflection. Through his thin silver glasses, black eyes stared back at him. Swimming in the dark brown liquid were specks of something glowing. Very small, barely perceptible, there were flakes of a sparkling material. The boy noticed them and thought they looked like gold.

He took a sip. The liquid was hot and went down smooth. He felt it travel down his throat and into his stomach. The warm feeling carried all throughout his body. What is this? The boy thought. It was steaming and the liquid a dark brown. He thought back to his home. In the mornings, his father would sit in his office by the window and read the papers. He drank from a steaming cup, was this what he drank?

He had had it once before, the boy suddenly remembered, with his mother. She would share a cup with him at breakfast. With whip cream rising out of the mug, the boy would take gingerly sips, mostly tasting the cream. It was sweet and warm. That must have been this. The boy took another sip from his cup and felt the warm sensations, tingling every nerve in his arms, his hair, and down to his feet. The golden sparkles glittered in the big white cup.

A woman came up to where the boy was sitting. He sat on a stool facing out the window in the corner. There was a thick wooden ledge that he was resting his arms on and had both hands on the cup. There was a small backpack at the foot of the chair. The youth’s black and white Chuck Taylor’s were high off the ground. The rain continued it’s relentless downpour. Not a single car passed by on the street and no one was out walking.

“Hello there, I’m Ezra”, the woman said as she sat down next to the boy. She had a steaming cup as well. The boy turned, under his thin wire framed glasses, he looked at her without speaking.

“I work here”, she said, “Me and my brother Sergio run this place. Hardly anyone comes in this late, but every once and a while someone does stop in. Quite peculiar at this time, it’s you.”

Pec-ul-iar.

“We like staying up late though. Around this time we play our music loud and kind of just do what we want. We drink wine too, but you’re too young for that. The time when it’s quiet like this, I either get lots of reading done or I draw. I like to draw. Sergio uses the down time to do all sorts of things - hey, do you like the coffee?”

Cof-fee.

The young boy then spoke. It was so quiet the woman couldn’t hear anything. But she could read his lips.

“Is this cof-fee?”

“Yes, that’s coffee, is that okay? You were shivering when you came in here, so I knew I had to serve you something hot. But being a cafe and bar we don’t have any hot chocolate mix, nor do we have tea. I thought a little coffee couldn’t hurt. Is it alright?”

The next time the boy spoke, she could hear him clearly. His voice was soft, like it was wrapping her in a warm blanket.

“I love this. It’s wonderful.”

“Ah, you’re too sweet”, she replied.

“I’m so warm.”

The boy’s cheeks flushed a light pink. The woman smiled. She had bleached white hair that ended at her shoulders, she didn’t wear glasses, and had clear green eyes that reminded the boy of the sea. Her smile revealed small straight white teeth and her lips were soft and pink.

“Ez-ra”, the boy said.

“That’s right”, said the woman and nodded. “And what’s your name, little curious one?”

“Koi”, the boy whispered, “Like the fish.”

The woman blushed. What a beautiful name, she thought.

The rain wasn’t letting up. The woman and the boy watched outside as the rain beat against the window. Gusts of wind blew and they could see the water droplets rushing up the street and swirling around. Water had flooded the gutters and the streets had a thin layer of water on top of them, making the streets look like shallow rivers. Through the glass, the neon lights blurred into a wash of colors.

“Would you like some more?”, the woman asked the boy after a minute. He had already drank half the cup.

The boy gave a short, decisive nod.

The woman rose and took his cup. As she walked over to behind the bar, she thought she noticed a little golden sparkle inside the cup. She looked inside, but found it was just black coffee, as she had served. Once behind the bar, she tossed the remainder of coffee in the sink, and washed it down with a quick splash from the tap. Then, she went to the big coffee pot and refilled the cup with the nothing special coffee - classic diner brew. She filled it just under the edge and headed back to where the boy sat.

“Here you are, Sweetie.”

She set the cup next to the boy and he put both his hands around the cup and took a sip. Again, she thought she noticed a golden glimmer, but the boy was already drinking from it so she couldn’t see. Despite the coffee being scalding hot, the boy took three generous gulps, he set the cup down and then turned to her. He smiled brightly, his black eyes shined with life, and his face flushed with color.

“It’s so good”, he exclaimed, “I love it!”

The woman couldn’t help but laugh.

“Good”, she said, “I’m glad.”

She was anxious to know where the boy had come from. Her maternal instincts were kicking in. It was nearly one o’clock in the morning, the boy hardly seemed above the age of twelve, and the woman knew that the boy shouldn’t be out this late on his own. However, he didn’t seem without a home, he didn’t smell, and the clothes he wore were decent. His attitude, shy yet polite, didn’t make him seem like the type to be out on his own. She couldn’t pinpoint what had brought him in. Why’d he have a backpack with him? Was it that he’d run away from home? Considering the rain, he may have picked the wrong night to set out—and gotten caught in the downpour. He’s taken shelter in our cafe. That’s what must have happened, the woman confirmed with herself, and the thought put her at ease. As long as he stays here, she decided, I’m okay with him being out. Sergio and I will be here until morning and that’s when I can walk him home, let his parents know that he was safe with us the whole time.

After making her silent decision, she rose and left the boy to himself. He seemed perfectly content watching the rain through the window. She went to where her bother was sitting, towards the back of the bar, where he sat reading a thick book under the orange glow of a lamplight. A large glass of red wine stood on the table before him. Sergio was a tall, thin, studious type of man, two years younger than his sister. His skin was tan and he wore a thick black mustache. Through a pair of clear horn-rimmed glasses, his green eyes shone like the sea, the same as his sister’s.

“Yo Sergy, can you fix the boy up a sandwich and some soup? I’m afraid he’s run away from home and gotten caught out in this storm.”

Sergio glanced up from his reading and took a look across the cafe. He saw the boy sitting and staring blankly out the window, his hands cupped around the mug. Sergio didn’t like the idea of being a charity service, but if his older sister said so, he had to oblige. He had always trusted her judgement.

“Of course,” Sergio said as he rose and set down his book. He took a generous sip from his wineglass and said, “It’ll be out in a minute.”

He smiled to his sister and went to the back of the kitchen to prepare the food.

The woman went back to where the boy was seated. It was unlikely anyone else was coming in that night and there was nothing in particular that she had to do. As she approached, she noticed again a golden glow coming from his cup. The boy’s hands were wrapped around the cup and he was looking inside it, the golden glow illuminating his face. As she approached, the boy withdrew his hands from the cup and the glow disappeared. The woman thought she might have imagined it, but she wasn’t so sure now that she had seen it a third time.

Was there something special about this boy? She thought.

“Anyway”, the woman said as she sat back down next to the boy, “Our cafe is called, El Guero. Our father opened it up a long time ago. He passed away last year. This place was his life’s passion. He loved to serve people at all hours of the night and have conversations with the people who came in, just like you and I are now. He always said the most curious people came during the middle of the night. Although, our mother wasn’t too fond of the hours he kept. He would stay late here and read into the night, or write, or paint. He became friends with some of the most interesting people in this city. Most nights hardly anyone would come in, but you wouldn’t believe it, sometimes this cafe was brimming with people at three o’clock in the morning. It’s not so much like that anymore, but my brother and I still like to keep it open. After he passed, we knew we wanted to keep it open for his sake. We’re not sure how long we will, we have our own lives we want to lead, but at least for now, we really enjoy being open late and serving the people who find their way in here. And it still smells like him too. Freshly brewed coffee and a hint of red wine.”

The boy took a sip of his coffee and with a slight nod, he seemed to have decided on something.

“I felt it”, the boy said at last.

The woman looked at him.

“The reason I am here”, the boy continued,” Is because it’s warm, very warm, warmest of all places tonight. It gets cold in the rain, especially at this time of the year—but, I could feel this warmth from miles away. I had to come in to see.”

With his eyes closed, the boy smiled, an ear to ear smile, and the woman felt her heart flutter.

“Well, I better get going”, the boy said suddenly, “Ez-Ra, watch for the rain.”

The boy hopped off from the chair. The woman felt a pang of fear. He can’t be leaving so soon! Sergio came out from the back with a sandwich and a bowl of soup on a plate.

“We made you some food, at least take it with you, it’s not safe for you to be out so late at night”, the woman said.

“No need for worry”, the boy replied, “I’ll be okay.”

He then pushed the door opened and slipped out into the rain.

The woman looked back at Sergio.

“What do we do?”

Sergio shrugged at his sister.

“There’s nothing we can do. He’ll find his way. Wait—what is that glow?”

The woman turned to look outside and when she saw the boy in the street, she gasped.

The boy stood an inch above the rushing water. Rain bounced off of him, and as it did, the droplets burst into a golden shower. Streams of golden rain ran down his jacket and at his feet the water was glimmering bright gold. The boy was ensconsed in a haze of golden spray, for as the rapid shower came down on him, each droplet burst into a golden light. He held out his hands in the rain and watched as the dazzling drops bounced off his skin.

Sergio ran to the window. The glow was lighting up the street and the cafe.

They watched in silence, their green eyes swimming in the brilliant light. The boy continued walking at a leisurely pace down the street. As he started down the hill, he was cut from sight and the light set under the horizon of the street, returning everything back to night.

“Koi”, the boy whispered, “Like the fish.”

written by Brandon Parks

accompanied photo by Carey Ciuro : http://onepointeight.tumblr.com/

#short story #the golden shower #coffee #rain #koy fish #frontcut

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frontcut · 6 years

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DJ Koze: Knock Knock

Stefan Kozalla has come to be known as an elusive individual not only on the DJ circuit but as a person as well. Growing up in Hamburg, Germany in the 1980’s, he found himself at the forefront of progressive electronic music, starting his DJ career at a ripe age of 16 years old. He has long had an interest in hip hop and during the 90’s was part of the German Hip-Hop act Fischmob, among many other projects and monikers that he had worked on or been apart of. To completely review Stefan Kozalla’s discography would only yield an injustice to all that he’s done, instead, we’ve reviewed his latest work with an attempt to scratch the surface of the always enigmatic, DJ Koze.

Kozalla is an artist who has been around the block and back quite a few times. He has been honing his craft since the 80’s and has always been interested in a vast amount of music. Since his founding of Pampa Records in 2010, he has gathered a group of progressive producers that are on the forefront of electronic music.

Rather than following trends of electronic music, Kozalla seems to remove himself from them completely. He is an artist’s artist, one many DJ’s strive to be, but due to their lack of experience or “give no shit” personality that he has, to do so. Kozalla is able to crank out minimal techno house tracks that are incredibly eclectic and veer in so many directions yet still maintain a polished sound that is all his own.

“Kozalla is able to create music that

resonates with people high off their ass on

ecstasy as well as people that are in it for

the long hall of the sober listen.”

Knock Knock is an album that reaffirmed Kozalla's significance in the electronic music canon. Amygdala, his previous full length, was greeted with a warm welcoming and raised Kozalla's profile. It was an album that solidified him as an artist who is confident in going against the grain and straying away from conformity.

Kozalla is able to create music that resonates with people high off their ass on ecstasy as well as people that are in it for the long hall of the sober listen. Knock Knock is an album where every track sounds completely different, while at the same time retaining a sonic atmospheric theme throughout the album. The vocal features on the album, including Jose Gonzalez, Kurt Wagner, Lambchop, Speech, and Róisín Murphy, are clear evidence that Kozalla is infatuated with indie music. Kozalla’s choice of incorporating these artists exhibits Kozalla’s own skill of fusing a wide array of interests into a single cohesive work. The album even includes a sample of Justin Vernon’s vocals from Bon Iver’s ‘Calgary’, highlighted by the humorously titled Bonfire.

“From his avant-garde approach,

to covering his albums with outlandish

photos of himself, Kozalla allows humor

to serve as a thread in tying his work

together, as well as define himself.”

Humor is yet another thing that Kozalla has established himself with, as well as having it serve as an inviting aspect of his music. From his avant-garde approach, to covering his albums with outlandish photos of himself, Kozalla allows humor to serve as a thread in tying his work together, as well as define himself. Humor, a quality rarely seen in art, and much less in music, is refreshing and enables the work to feel comfortable in its own skin, becoming less ostentatious, and much more inviting. DJ Koze’s Knock Knock, has the confidence to be taken seriously, while simultaneously having the ability to let it’s guard down and be free.

Knock Knock knocks on so many doors of music, and they all open. Every single door opens to Kozalla, and he weaves through each one to create an album that touches upon genres that no one would ever think would come into contact. From folk to 90's hip hop, Knock Knock covers it all.

It’s an album that has not been done before, because breaking borders is always a frightful task to undertake, yet Kozalla traverses them without ever thinking about the consequences of whether or not people are going to appreciate it - Kozalla makes music for the sake of making music, and that’s why he is so respected among listeners around the world. DJ Koze’s sound is all sound, and that’s how music should be.

written by Reid Duncan

#dj koze #stefan kozalla #knock knock #pick up #seeing aliens #bonfire #frontcut

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frontcut · 6 years

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Amen Dunes: Freedom

Freedom is the title of an album that has been done too many times, an album that exists in multiple places in the history of the music canon, yet still manages to feel fresh. Damon McMahon a.k.a Amen Dunes latest release titled 'Freedom' is an album that has been a long time coming. McMahon has been making music under the moniker Amen Dunes for the better part of the last ten years. His music has gone largely unrecognized by mainstream listeners due largely in part to the fact that he has been making music that was purely for himself, so it seems. His first few albums such as Murder Dull Mind and Through Donkey Jaw are incredible works, but looking back now after the release of Freedom, those albums seem like building blocks for the refined sound that he has found on his latest work.

To understand McMahon's music, one must dive into understanding him as a person, or understand him as well as one can without knowing him personally. McMahon nearly quit music completely when he moved from his home base of New York City to China in an effort to escape the music scene and do something completely autonomous. McMahon spent several years in China before moving back to New York to work on his latest album. In a recent interview McMahon claimed that he rarely listens to any music at all - and I believe it. If you listen to McMahon's music, it sounds as if he is the type of artist that writes his lyrics first and the music after. This might be due in part to the fact that he is a literature junky. In that same interview, McMahon says that he believes all musicians deep down want to be writers and all writers deep down want to be musicians. This could not be more applicable to another musician more than it is to Damon McMahon, who claims his greatest idol is Bob Dylan, the first musician in history to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

“The album is in someways a retaliation

against all that McMahon has come to

know about the music industry.”

In all previous albums McMahon's vocals take on an ambient almost hypnotic instrumental use throughout his songs, but all of that changes on Freedom. Freedom is an album that is polished and direct but still allows the listener to get lost like all of Amen Dunes’ other albums. The album is in someways a retaliation against all that McMahon has come to know about the music industry. The intro track titled "Intro," begins with a child forcefully saying, "This is your time. Their time is done. It's over!” A statement that’s energy carries over throughout the entire album. McMahon is the type of guy that seems to have been born to sing. His vocal delivery is unique and truly original, it is both hesitant and confident at the same time.

“Freedom is an album that took patience

to make and it requires a sense of

patience from the listener as well.”

The songs on Freedom seem to change the more one listens to them, they grow and become more layered as one plugs into the way McMahon meticulously has arranged them. The songs are extremely complex and it's evident that they were worked on for quite sometime, taking a break from them and then returning to add another layer to them when the time feels right, never forcing anything. Freedom is an album that took patience to make and it requires a sense of patience from the listener as well. Once that first listen has been completed it leaves the listener with many questions urging them to jump back into the album to continue to decipher its layers, and pretty soon the listener is past trying figure out what the album is about, but has become absorbed in the immersive poetry McMahon has dished out; hooking the listener like a drug to every word and intricacy of the albums arrangement.

Once you finish listening to Freedom you feel as if you have developed a relationship with McMahon. Through his deeply original lyrics and vocal delivery, he grabs the listener and takes them on a journey through his perspective of reality and fiction.

written by Reid Duncan

#amen dunes #Damon McMahon #freedom #believe #miki dora #frontcut

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frontcut · 6 years

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Jake Lee: Turning Off the Ego

Years ago, a friend talked to me about the ego. The I or the me. The voice inside our head that controls our every action, the consciousness that determines our every move. This friend was the one who told me how I could turn that voice off.

He described it as flipping a switch. At one point the ego is on and in full force, but at a point he decides, he switches it off. I imagined a darkness that enveloped the inside of his body, removing all light for him to guide himself, and replacing it with a silent, bottomless darkness. My friend told me that inside that darkness is where it all happens. That in there, anything is possible.

We were sitting on a grass hillside that overlooked a large valley. There was a thin fence in front of us, and a row of neatly ordered tents behind us. The grass was long and cool under our bare feet and the wind coming up through the hills was warm. Down below us was the city of Bilbao, Spain; a large modern city with a few elegant skyscrapers alongside even level buildings with red brick rooftops and cream-colored walls. Far to our left was an expansive cove where the land met the lightless Atlantic ocean. The city climbed up from the beach, up through the valley, and ended at the base of a mountain far to our right. The city’s lights glittered in the dark as my friend and I tossed back warm beers and chain-smoked cigarettes.

How does one simply turn off their ego? I’d never once considered myself to have an ego. I’d always thought that, if I did, it couldn’t be such a bad thing; an idealized version of oneself, what’s so wrong with that? Although now, I began to entertain the thought that I had cheated myself in someway. If I did have an ego, was it preventing me from getting things I wanted? Was it restricting me from being my own true self?

“Of course, it’s only temporary,” my friend began, “If you could live without an ego all the time, then you’d be a Buddhist monk. I don’t know anything about being a monk, but I know that when I do something like this, traveling alone and meeting strangers, the best thing I can do is turn off my ego.”

He outstretched his hands and then snapped his fingers.

“I let go of just about everything. The perception of who I am, judgements, fears, anger, I let it all go. I let the flow of things happen and once I’ve switched over, people tend to respond in the strangest ways. For example, you and me. By chance, I’ve managed to get up into these mountains, with little aid from my cellphone and even less aid from my broken Spanish, and found the tent I had reserved. I’m sharing a conversation with the neighbor of that tent, someone I had never known until tonight, and have been welcomed with abundant beer and my first ever cigarette smoke.”

“Sure, but what does the ego have to do with any of that?”

Impressed, I assessed my new neighbor; a wide-eyed Korean with silky black hair, a sharp jaw line and a bright wide smile. He had been silent as he acquainted himself with his lodgings for the night, a two person tent with nothing inside. Like my group and I, he’d come ill prepared. He had slipped off his sandals, laid out a towel, and sat down cross legged closing his eyes and taking a moment to relax. He began unpacking his bag when I offered him a beer. I shot my friendliest smile to the stranger, hoping he wouldn’t be straight-edge or shy, and when he accepted the beer, I was relieved. Likewise, my offering seemed to have a profound effect on him. He had told me his name was Jake, Jake Lee.

He took a big gulp from his third can and finished it. The city continued its warm glow below us.

“However,” my friend continued, “There are times when turning off the ego can be dangerous. You can loose yourself completely, and that’s a frightening thing. I was on holiday last year, around this same time in Amsterdam. I had turned off my ego, click, like the flip of a switch, and had met a group of people from London. They were a bit older, a rowdy group, and they insisted on buying me beers. I was enjoying myself, they were talkative and friendly, but I realize now that they weren’t really listening to me, truly, like how you are now. These people weren’t interested in me, didn’t give two shits. I felt as if I was impeding on their group, despite their insistence to buy me beer. That’s how you compensate for free drinks, right? Good conversation. Well for some reason, they had decided to mess with me, but I couldn’t see it. Their fun was in taking advantage of me.”

My friend paused and sighed.

“After several rounds of drinks, they asked me if I wanted to do mushrooms. They had bought them the previous day from a coffeeshop in the city, saying that they were safe and were a really good time. I had turned my ego off and felt willing, I didn’t really care what it meant to take mushrooms, if it meant continuing to party with them then I was willing. Stupid, right? We ate the mushrooms together and continued hanging at the bar. We were in the back corner, beginning to trip on our own. Pretty quickly, I began feeling the effects. I had never even smoked marijuana before, the laws in Korea are very strict. I had never done drugs, yet here I was taking hallucinogenic mushrooms.”

Jake smiled and took a long drag of his cigarette. He coughed and quickly washed down the taste with beer.

“These are great,”, he said, “I can see the allurement now, dangerous little fuckers. Anyway, soon enough I realized that I wasn’t just taking mushrooms. At some point, the people I was with slipped something in my drink. I think it was ecstasy but I’m not 100% certain. I don’t know why anyone would go and do that to someone, but like I said, they wanted to mess with me. As you can imagine, it completely fucked me up.”

At this point my friend reached for another beer and cracked it opened. I took a drag from my cigarette and exhaled it into the wind.

“I lost complete control of myself. My vision became distorted, the carpet began swirling under me, the paintings on the wall came to life, the bartenders turned green, and I watched as luminescent objects floated through the air. I lost the group in minutes. I somehow found my way to the rooftop, without the slightest idea of how I got there. I looked out over the edge, about five stories up, and could see the ground coming up toward me. The sidewalk, people walking, cars passing, it seemed as if I could reach out and touch them. Like I could just step over and be among them. An unrelenting urge came over me, begging me to to find out. Without questioning, I lifted a leg over and stretched it as far as I could, pointing my toes to reach the street. My body felt lighter than air, like if I let go of the railing, I’d float. I hoisted my other leg over and stood holding the railing behind me. A gust of wind swept up from the street and the hairs of my skin rose, I was actually excited. I watched the cars passing under me and looked across the rooftops of the city that were standing and watching. It was a warm summer night and I actually felt excited to go and float above the rooftops. Without an ounce of fear, I let go of my hands and stepped off the edge.”

My friend turned to me. He smiled with his eyes closed and laughed.

“Then, what do you think happened?”

“You floated above the rooftops.”

“Ha! Not quite. I wish, but instead, something quite extraordinary happened; I heard a voice shout my name. A woman, I didn’t recognize the voice, but it was a woman’s voice that had shouted my name, and my real name, not Jake, but Jae-Sung. I use Jake when I travel because it’s easy, but someone had shouted my real name from somewhere far away. Like a flash of lightening, there came a sharp pain from deep inside of me. It was a pain so real that it woke me up to the reality I was in, that voice, came from inside me; someone was screaming for me, to not do what I was doing… In that moment, I flung my arm behind me and managed to grab the railing. My head flung forward and my feet dangled down toward the street. It no longer looked a few feet away, I was easily fifty-feet off the ground. Everything flooded back to me; the weight of my body, the sweat on my hands, the terrible fear, all of it, like every nerve in my body was screaming, but my brain couldn’t hear. I carefully and instantly pulled myself up and lifted myself over the railing. Terrified, I collapsed on the rooftop and stayed there frozen.”

Jake took a drink of his beer and I did the same.

“I nearly killed myself,” he continued looking me in the eye, “I still can’t believe it, but I had actually let go of the railing and began to fall. From somewhere far away I heard my name, a cry so painful that I can hear it even now. It wanted me to live. And I wanted to live too, desperately.”

“Who do you think it was that screamed your name?”

“I don’t know. But whomever or whatever it was, I’m grateful to it. It could have been my mother, or someone that I hadn’t met yet. It wasn’t someone on the street, it sounded like the voice was right beside me. Regardless of who it was, they saved me.”

My friend took a moment to think, looking out at the expansive metropolis below.

“What I mean to say is, turning off the ego is a very scary thing. I wasn’t aware of myself. It went beyond taking the drugs and being drugged, it was loosing complete control of myself and not knowing who I was. If you’re aware of yourself, and allow yourself to let go of your ego, then you’ll feel a great deal better. Things won’t worry you as much, you won’t care what people think of you, you won’t hesitate over whether every move you make is the right one. Things like fear and anxiety slip through your fingers. You stop forcing things to be the way you want them to. When you turn off the ego, you let things go, you give them up to the flow. I don’t know, it’s hard to put it into words, but I think - I think you just need to experience it. Let go of your ego and whatever burdens you will fall from your shoulders. I mean it. But you have to remember, you must never forget, know yourself first. That night, I wasn’t aware of myself. I’d forgotten all about Jae Sung, me, and my forgetfulness, my loss of self, it did me in for good. I don’t understand it, but for whatever reason, that wasn’t how I was supposed to die.”

He smiled, a careless and worry-less smile.

“But wasn’t it the drugs fault”, I argued, “Your ego didn’t have anything to do with it. You lost your awareness because of the drugs.”

“You may be right, but if I had kept even the slightest awareness to who I was, then things may have gone differently. You asked me how I’m able to travel alone like I do and I argue that it has to do with my ego technique. I’m able to open up a little more, let go of my will, and therefore experience a lot more than most people. Tell me Brandon, do you know yourself completely?”

I thought about it for a moment, but already knew the answer.

“No.”

“Right”, Jake said, “I don’t think anyone does. But turning of the ego helps you to figure it out. Turn off your ego and smile more, it helps fill that hole. But you can’t forget that life is ruthless and it doesn’t hesitate to cut you up, that’s what I’d forgotten.”

I thought about what it meant to turn off the ego. Even if I were to turn it off, how would I get any closer to knowing who I was?

“So what happened after?” I asked my friend.

He smiled and continued, “I fell asleep. Just passed out right there. Clouds gathered and it began to rain. A light summer rain. I didn’t get cold and just stayed there. Unable to move, I watched the rain come down from the sky. When I woke up, it was bright and sunny and my clothes had already dried. My head was as clear as a whistle. No headache or lingering effects of the drugs. I can’t explain it, but my head seemed clearer than before, like that experience had taught me something, something about myself. Although, I’m not really sure what it was. But what I know for sure, is that I couldn’t put my trust in people so easily. After that day, I went to spend the rest of the trip by myself. No hostels, no going out. Just a single hotel room and a seat at a cafe alone. I wanted time to think, read, and relax. I got on the first train to Paris, it was expensive and cut my trip short, but that’s what I wanted. I stayed for two more weeks and after those two weeks, I went back to Seoul for my next quarter at University.”

My friend continued to tell me about how he’d spend his summers traveling and the rest of his year rigorously studying. His father was an engineer for a major firm and his son was going to follow suit. But the path that was laid out for him didn’t seem to bother him at all, despite his vagabond attitude.

Our conversation took place on the first night that I had met him. I was traveling through Spain with three others. We had gone to a music festival in the basque country and that was where we had met Jake. He’d decided to see a “rock n’ roll” festival and had purchased his tickets last minute. His provided tent was right next to ours and upon his arrival, I offered him the beer which began our conversation. I haven't seen him since that night, but I’m certain of one thing. He’s living a life worth living.

Click, like the flip of a switch.

written by Brandon Parks

#turning off the ego #ego #frontcut

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frontcut · 6 years

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Murakami: Norwegian Wood

It’s a late afternoon in April and the sky is completely overcast hanging on the edge of raining. Tonight, I’m certain it’s going to rain. It felt like spring last week and the weeks before, with trees and flowers blooming and all, but today hardly feels like spring, it’s as cold as if it were the first day of winter; what I’d expect of San Francisco.

I’m writing in my notebook listening to the Beatles and drinking coffee. It’s 6.30 pm, but that doesn’t really matter when it comes to drinking coffee. In the middle of the night I don’t typically get up and drink coffee, but any other time I don’t quite care where the sun is in the sky for me not to have a cup.

I’m listening to Rubber Soul because I just finished Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood. I ask myself how I could have thrown this novel under the bus so many times…and I just can’t quite remember. But I’m glad I picked it up again, the book is a fucking masterpiece.

The reason I’m drawn to all Murakami books is because of the characters. They’re honest, they’re funny, they’re weird, and most importantly, they’re detached from others. This is what each of them strives to resolve over the course of the narrative. They’re incredibly nice guys, they’re smart and do things their own way, but they fail time and time again to connect with others. They’re content being on their own, and they often prefer things that way, which results in other characters ignoring and disliking our hero. But at the end of the day, they’re all terribly nice guys, looking out for everyone, and forgetting to look after themselves, but isn’t that what makes them so terribly likable?

In Norwegian Wood, Toru Watanabe was more closely relatable than any other Murakami character because of his age - starting out at 19 and going through almost the end of his twentieth year. Also, he’s a listener, what good narrator isn’t? These are the best kind of narratives: stories within stories. A story made up of all the other stories that the hero comes in contact with. He listens. He strives to understand people, and that’s his greatest virtue. He goes with the flow, he saves time for himself, and when an opportunity arrives, he ins’t afraid of stepping out of his shell and going and doing something with other people. He’s in college, he’s got a girlfriend (kind of), he’s got struggling friends, far worse than I do, and it’s those friends which make it such a gripping story - almost a tragedy. No. I’d say a tragedy. A quiet one. A heartbreaking one. He struggles to understand what role he plays in the world. He’s in school, but has little to no direction, he takes classes he’s interested in, but doesn’t know or care for what exactly he wants to do when he leaves. Sound like someone? You guessed it. He often takes things way to seriously and puts unnecessary pressure on himself. Who does that sound like? Precisely.

Over the course of events, he falls in love with another girl. But one who is “living, breathing” right in front of him. Where as the one he is in love with is currently ill and struggling to get better. He’s terribly in love, but she isn’t in love with him. We learn that in the first chapter, where our aged narrator tells us about his first love; something that he’s come to terms with long, long ago, but has yet to overcome.

Ultimately, Watanabe has to choose between the past (Naoko) or the future (Midori). Taking the metaphor further, he has to choose between life or death. With a little guidance, he is able to pull himself out of all the pain he feels, but in order to do so, he chooses to leave behind Midori, who he really, truly loves, to be on his own for months on end. And by then, by the time he’s resolved himself and can call her - we don’t get to see it they’re together or not, we don’t know Midori’s decision of whether or not she takes him back. In the opening chapter, he’s alone traveling to “Germany again.” He studies German all throughout the novel, which alludes to the fact that he may live there in the present. Or is he fleeing Tokyo? Or is he simply there for work? Are him and Midori even together?

Murakami, as he likes to do, leaves us in the dark. But isn’t that better than giving us a happily ever after? We don’t know, because we never know how life is going to work out. If it ended happily ever after, as readers we would forget all the shit that he had to go through. We would forget about Naoko. But we can’t forget about her, just like Watanabe can never forget about her. Maybe he’s still with Midori…or maybe they never got back together. But that’s just too sad to think about… Ultimately, they're characters and not real people, but in some mysterious way, the unknowing hurts more, because it’s like I’m friends with him, and I care about his future. But why?

Because the novel allows us to care about Toru Watanabe as much we care about ourselves, and through his heartrending coming-of-age, we learn to care for ourselves first, in order to gain the capacity to truly care for others.

by Brandon Parks

#haruki murakami #tokyoblues #frontcut #norwegian wood

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