It’s a simple yet sublime pleasure, and just thinking about it can make you feel a little calmer, a little more content. Imagine: You bring out one of the good rocks glasses (or your favorite mug or a special occasion tea cup) and pour a couple fingers of amber liquid (or something dark and strong or just some whole milk). You drop the needle on the jazz platter (or pull up a blues album on your mp3 player or dig out that mixtape from college). Ensconcing yourself in the coziest seat in the house, you crack the spine on a classic (or find your place in that sci-fi paperback or pull up a biography on your e-book reader). And then, you go away for a while. Ah, bliss.
In this series, some of NTSIB’s friends share beloved albums, books and drinks to recommend or inspire.
David Strange spent many years as a session musician and playing guitar in Courtney Love’s band, while writing his own songs in secret. In January, he’s turning five of them loose upon the world, in the form of a self-titled EP. It is, truly, a dazzling cornucopia of sounds and concepts. It’s a little bit of heavy thudding drums and guitar wizardry, a little bit of electronic wubblebubble, a little bit of Elvis Costello-style grim-pop, a little weird, and a lot awesome. I got through all five songs and immediately wanted to know what else he was building in there.
Mean World is the first single, and the tip of the iceberg:
And now, I will turn the floor over to him, to tell us about a good read, a good listen, and a good drink:
Photo by Charlotte Kemp Muhl
A Good Read
Delta of Venus by Anais Nin. Broke and destitute sometime in the 1940’s Anais Nin and Henry Miller anonymously began writing erotica for an unnamed ‘collector’ in exchange for the sum of about a dollar per page. Good money for smut in those pre-internet free porn website days. They didn’t take it exactly seriously at the time so it’s a little unclear as to how involved Miller was compared to Nin nor did they intend for mass publication of the work which didn’t appear until the 1970’s when Nin finally permitted it.
The ‘collector’ insisted that they leave poetic and literary language aside as much as possible to focus solely on the graphic, sexual and descriptive nature of the vignettes. Despite these instructions and limitations the artistic juices of her . . . inkwell . . . manage to soak through the page. Best read in bed with a pal . . .
A Good Listen
Magma‘s debut, Magma* from 1970. Originally a double LP this album is the manifestation of band leader Christian Vander’s disturbed futuristic vision of humanity’s spiritual and ecological demise. It’s a concept album about a group of humans who flee the doomed earth to settle on a distant planet called Kobaïa. Apparently, this migration is copacetic until a second group of human refugees arrive causing trouble with the original Kobaïan settlers. The album indeed sounds like the soundtrack to this universal theme. At times it’s like a psychedelic version of Coltrane on Broadway if Broadway was a space station. Other times it sounds like the ritual chants of a North African Satanic sex cult having a funk orgy. There’s a sprinkle of Fantasia and flavors of interstellar battle hymns.
Close your eyes while you listen to this and holograms of an epic, interplanetary swordfight on the moon will appear in your mind. Oh, and Vander invented his own language called Kobaïan which is used for most of the vocals on the album. So, I guess it appeals on a lyrical level equally to listeners on earth as well as elsewhere.
*Magma was later reissued as Kobaïa and can be found on iTunes under this title.
A Good Drink
Scorpion Langkau. I found this in the Sarawak state of Borneo, East Malaysia. It’s a traditional drink of the Iban people who are known to be some of the last practicing headhunters of the 20th century. Langkau is distilled from a milky-white rice wine called Tuak and served in a large medicinal jar with a steel ladle and dead scorpion at the bottom. You can find it at Ruai Bar on the outskirts of Kuching. Your body goes numb when you drink this, starting with your teeth. Definitely have it first if you plan on getting any of the traditional bamboo and mallet tattoos that are prevalent among the Iban.