CarrionFlowers

"Carrion Flowers" is the name of a new mix I just made. It's about the beautiful and the grotesque. The dead and the pretty. It's about being cute and happy while also maybe deciding to kill something.

Enjoy the Spotify version here (though it is missing a couple of CRUCIAL songs).

Otherwise, listen/watch the mix below.

Top Twenty Albums.

Assignment: exchange top twenty albums with coworker/friend Evan. And now more information than you ever wanted to know about me and my relationship to these twenty albums (in no particular order).

MixtressRae'sTOPTWENTYALBUMS:

sarah mclachlan // fumbling towards ecstasy -- This album slays me still, 20 years after its inception, around 17 since I first discovered its divine beauty. It's breathtaking, gorgeous, and my #1 makeout album of all time. Forget Barry White, THIS is all you need to get down. I'm pretty sure this album has never been played in its entirety in front of a man I like without something interesting happening, is all I'm sayin'. It's sexy. It takes you through all stages of well, fumbling towards ecstasy. Best named album ever. I don't know what to say...I couldn't love this album more, from start to finish. 

portishead // dummy -- A pioneer in the trip-hop genre, this album is indispensable to my life. Without the soundtrack within the sleeve, if you will, I would not be who I am today. I have a black and white music video of me and my Xine doing "sour times" on VHS if you ever want to see it. It's pretty cool, if I do say so myself. One of the requirements of my top twenty is that I have to be able to listen to the entire album almost without tiring of it, and this one stands the test, for sure. I could probably listen to this album on repeat for a week.

cibo matto // viva! la woman -- One of my most vivid memories of this album was listening to it, Garbage's s/t, and Frente!'s "shape" on shuffle on my three disc CD changer (later when I had a 5-discer, Fiona Apple's Tidal and Tori Amos' Boys for Pele won the other two spots). I can barely remember a time before this album was on my top ten, at least. These first few albums really have become a part of me at this point, knowing them for so long...each at least 15 years. Another album I've NEVER gotten tired of listening to...that's pretty freakin' serious, man!

pj harvey // to bring you my love -- This is one of those serendipitous albums. I saw it at Hastings, having never heard of PJ Harvey, and fell in love with the cover, took it home, and loved it, obviously. This is one of those singular experiences, hardly ever duplicated (happened with Ani DiFranco's Dilate, too) in my whole history of listening to music. These days, listening to something on Google or Spotify is just a momentary click, but back in the '90s living in a small Midwest town, you had to shell out the bucks to experience an album with an intriguing cover, and often, VERY often, they sucked. PJ Harvey does not suck, and I still think this is her best album, bluesy, emotional, and dark.

tori amos // boys for pele -- Pele is a Hawaiian volcano goddess, and she requires boys to be sacrificed to her, like Tom Hanks maybe, in order to calm her lava rage. Yes, my Pele (the cat) is named after her. This is my #1 breakup album ("I shaved every place where you been, boy"). Despite my more recent disillusionment with Amos, this album holds up and was the album that started my scary-intense obsession with her. It's so angry and demonic and dark and scary. Love the harpsichord.

garbage // garbage -- Garbage never really moved past how amazing their debut album truly was. It's legendary, in my mind, at least. It's just good rock. I also have many music videos of me emulating Shirley Manson. Manson (Shirley, not Marilyn, though I sooooo had a crush on him too) and Geena Davis from "The Long Kiss Goodnight" inspired my emergence into goth at 14, and I never looked back. This album is partially responsible for me becoming ME. 

grimes // visions -- This is the newest album on the list (though I briefly considered Lana Del Rey's Born to Die), only from last year, so I wasn't sure if it counted as one of my top twenty, but I think it does because according to my last.fm profile I've listened to Grimes 1,182 times since I discovered this enchanting songstress in February of last year. That's almost three songs a day every day since I discovered her. Yeah. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Grimes is what my brainwaves sound like. Her and her bf have really insightful posts on their tumblrs too.

cure // pornography -- This album was made the year I was born (1982). #1 bathtub album of all time. It was hard not to have at least three Cure albums on this list, but I decided I only get one per artist. I can get sucked into a Cure-hole easily. I could spend an entire evening listening to this, Faith, and Disintegration. Disintegration is the #1 driving-around-in-the-rain album of all time, in case you were wondering. I just can't get enough of the wall of sound of The Cure, the dark and twisted vocals of Robert Smith, and the atmosphere. I could get lost in The Cure for days...

depeche mode // violator -- Depeche Mode is another artist I can get lost inside. If you want to know what MixtressRae considers a love song, it's Depeche Mode. Their lyrics are honest love songs. I get the impression that the songwriters (Gahan and Gore are kind of indistinguishable to me) are kind of dicks, but if I'm directing a love song at someone, I'm a little bit of a dick too, so I empathize, I guess is what I'm saying. I'd like to be more like Sarah McLachlan, but I'm more like Dave Gahan. I feel like Depeche Mode is my "cosmic" connection to my dad too, because he was kind of a dick too. He he.

brian eno // here come the warm jets -- Glam. '70s rock. Androgyny. Hot men in eyeliner. Most of the time people think of Bowie, I think of Eno. The Eno in my head based on the sound of his resonant voice, because his face isn't that attractive, but that VOICE. Why did he stop singing? Why? This is the first record I go to when I listen to LPs. Every song is an island.

talking heads // fear of music -- Produced by Brian Eno. The Talking Heads' most atmospheric album. Kind of psychedelic, even, in that world music/punk/new wave way. Contains two of my favorite Talking Heads songs; Air and Animals.

fiona apple // tidal -- Listening to Fiona Apple has always been like reading my diary, if my diary were incredibly, ingeniously lyrical. Again, every song here is an island. So perfectly singular, yet fits within the whole seamlessly. Sullen Girl is my theme song. This is one case in which the critics are right. She really is everything they say she is. My initial music crush on Ms. Apple started in 1996 and it still feels as fresh as it did then. Somewhere in a landfill (or an undisclosed location chosen by weather) is a scrap of sketchbook paper wherein a 15-yr old girl drew Fiona as an angel. I'd never call ANYONE an angel but you, dear sweet Fiona. Incidentally, my best music video ever was my lipsync to Sleep to Dream. I nailed it!

roxy music // country life -- Another album that feels like a world you step into for an hour. I keep characterizing albums as "atmospheric" and this is what I mean. I like fantasy worlds, and albums create that for me if they're worth their salt as ALBUMS. Some songs do it by themselves and I aim to make my mixes sound like worlds unto themselves, but nothing does it like a well-constructed album. Country Life is my #1 ennui-in-the-bedroom-at-2am album ("I'll find myself if it takes all night").

queens of the stone age // lullabies to paralyze -- #1 summer album of all time. Reminds me of drinking bad beer and canoeing, of general sun-soaked drunken debauchery, of long sweaty drives with my hands catching the wind out the open window. Love it. Just good fun rock with a pretty ginger boy on vocals. Honey voice, that one. I'd drink a summer shandy with Homme any July.  

sneaker pimps // becoming x -- Another trip-hop essential that was on constant repeat back in the days of frente!, Fiona, and Cibo Matto. Never get tired of this album. Sad they didn't keep this lead singer longer than one album. She was just too wild to tame, baby.

kate bush // the dreaming -- Kate Bush is way more important than most people know. I can't tell you why (because you have to feel it), and most people I know can't handle her voice (she uses it as a weapon, and most people are just too scared to embrace the hammer), but she's creative and interesting and goddamnit, she's amazing. This album was made in 1982, my birth year. If you ever need to exorcise a demon, play Get Out Of My House and that sucker will leave screaming. Kate Bush is a witch and she's crazy empowering. "Can I have it all now?"

metric // live it out -- When rock and electronic meet. You have the headbanging, all the headbanging, but also the synthesizers. This is the #1 I'm-better-than-the-asshole-I'm-dating-and-he's-never-going-to-understand-me-and-neither-does-society album. And that's all I have to say about that.

cake // fashion nugget -- I have sooooo many stories about this album. The first time I heard it I was cuddling with one of my first boyfriends, so that's a pleasant memory. He also later used Friend is a Four Letter Word as a fuck-you break-up song to me over the phone, so that's a little less pleasant memory. Nugget was playing when my mom told me "fuck" was her favorite word. Frank Sinatra is the name of my iPad with lyrics engraved on the back, not because of the person Frank Sinatra, but the song, you see. All Cake albums are created (mostly) equal, but this is THE Cake album for me. The Distance still brings the house down when I sing it karaoke. I suppose this album is a story of each individual song, and I like it for nostalgia.

nirvana // unplugged in new york -- It was hard for me to pick a live album (because I hate applause), though this is the ONLY live album I listen to in its entirety often, and it's my favorite Nirvana album, so I had to choose it. Every song breaks my soul in half, and I'm into that. "I cannot see the end of me. My whole expanse, I cannot see." What a lot of people don't remember is that Kurt was a feminist and a really spiritual, intuitive, NICE person. I say this like I knew him, but look into those eyes, man. Those Pisces eyes...how can you not know him? I once wrote a pornographic poem about Kurt Cobain. Not because of his face, but his delicate Pisces soul. I love a delicate Pisces soul, for sho.

bjork // post -- Electronic pioneer, she is. Army of Me is the most perfect "buck up" song. I named a mixtape Army of Me once. So many great songs on this one. I don't even know what to say about this one. I like its isolation. It feels like a girl sitting in a beautiful landscape of circuit boards hacking her way through someone's mainframe just to dance on the 1s and 0s. There's a childlike destruction in the joy of Post. 

Too tired to proofread! so there it is.

How To Behave When Art Is Being Made Before Your Eyes.

In July, for the first time since my fixation began in 1996, I saw Fiona Apple in concert.  My husband and I had relatively good seats that we paid approximately 25% of our paychecks to obtain.  Fiona was phenomenal, but the crowd was NOT.  As a whole, the audience broke all of the rules below, and I felt separated from the woman I’d desperately wanted to share a room with for sixteen years, the woman I had driven two and a half hours to see perform her art...grr, digress digress.

  

July 17, 2012 -- Midland Theatre, Kansas City, MO.
Her setlist was as follows: Fast As You Can, On the Bound, Shadowboxer, Paper Bag, Anything We Want, Get Gone, Sleep to Dream, Extraordinary Machine, Werewolf, Tymps, Daredevil, I Know, Every Single Night, Not About Love, Carrion, Criminal, and It's Only Make Believe.

Here are five rules of etiquette (I know, I’m no Lady Von Halbach) for all-encompassing enjoyment of a concert (“concert” here defined as any single musical act you have paid more than 10 or 15 bucks to see: i.e., NOT a festival and NOT a typical Friday night at the dive bar downtown):

1. As an overall mindset, try to remember that there are people in the crowd that really really really want to see the performer, you know, perform.  You will be doing those particular fans a service by being as reserved as possible during the evening’s events.  This is not a time for attention-seeking behaviors.  Your fellow concert-goers didn’t pay to hear or see YOU do anything.
2. A note on phone usage: Y’all know I am serious about my technology, but when you’re experiencing an in-person event, such as music being created before your very ears, I am very anti-phone.  Don’t take video.  Don’t take pictures.  Put the screens in your purse or pocket for two freaking hours and be in the moment, people!
3. No one wants to begrudge a concert-goer a beer or two, but please keep your drunkenness to a minimum.  If the booze-habit gets you in and out of the aisles for cup-fills and bladder-empties more than a couple of times, just stay by the bar and let someone else have your seat/standing space.
4. If there are seats, sit down (especially if you’re in the front).  I’m 5’5” (that’s not short) and the behemoths standing in front of me made it very difficult to see the tiny glorious woman onstage.  For a large portion of the concert, a man’s substantial left ear was covering Ms. Apple’s entire head.  Common sense makes obvious the fact that EVERYONE can see if EVERYONE is sitting down. Conversely, if the venue is set up such that you couldn’t possibly disturb anyone by standing, by all means, dance your cute little butt off!
5. Keep your clapping/screaming/yelling to an absolute minimum.  You paid for the ticket, the performer already KNOWS how much you love them. Admittedly, this is somewhat of a personal issue (I feel like a baby seal slapping her flippers together when clapping). There’s no reason to clap/yell during a performance unless, ill-advised as it most certainly is, the artist has encouraged some sort of rhythm-bastardizing-group-epileptic-fit (for the record, Fiona would never engage in such tomfoolery--she didn’t even leave the stage before her required encore, bless her no-nonsense heart).  Call me crazy, but I believe all displays of appreciation should be held until the very end of the performance, like at symphonies and operas.

NOW, you can applaud...You’re welcome.  I love you too.

Finally, I shall contradict myself completely and reap the rewards of the assholes that held their phones up during the performance.  Below is a playlist of videos from that night.  They're not well-done, but they're in order and they're for posterity, for me, so I'm placing them here...

perception/deception

In high school my English teacher (you remember: the cute one that is now a principal?) taught a class about pluralism.  Pluralism (as I remember him teaching it then) is this idea that perception is reality and everyone perceives things differently, so can reality be defined/constant?  This is something we've all thought about at one time or another, so I am presenting nothing new, but recently I had to take a hard look at myself.

Remember in Anne Rice's "Queen of the Damned" where spirits were these giant balls of misty energy that spanned hundreds of miles with a concentrated meaty center? After the tornado, I was forced to gather up all of my misty-wide energy and stuff it into the shell of my body.  I then turned that body into a fortress and tried to ignore it.  In the time since that stupid Spring day I've over-indulged in alcohol, food, and darkness.  Any escape I could find, I clutched onto until my fingers bled.  As a result, what was already growing stagnant within me even before last Spring became so still, so unforgivingly rigid, that I couldn't even see that I was frozen.  My father died and I felt as if I was looking through an opaque glass at myself from another realm.  Apathy has been my muse, and I thank her for her service, but I have to break the fucking glass.

Recently, a confrontation/intervention was placed in front of me that I could not ignore.  I have always known who I am, so it was really hard to admit that I didn't know who I had become.  I had become this insular being without ardor.  I had forgotten that what we all are is fluid.  We change and evolve and taking a look at who you are is required of you every day.

The only people that remain sane in this world let go of the perception they believe others have of them.  They don't let themselves be defined by that perception.  Not even the perception that is their own.  I've always known this, but recently I've lost sight of where I sit within it.  I feel SUCH a kinship to those that are being their genuine selves without definition.  What I am now is not who I will be.  What I have been is not what I am.  I always really liked the lyrics to Incubus' "Make Yourself".  The idea of creating your self has always been important to me, but the thing I am grasping now is that you have to do this continuously throughout your existence.  It isn't forever that you are, it's forever that you choose to be.

With one swift primal scream I must let that giant all-encompassing spirit take her space again.  It cannot be contained within my body.  It must pervade everything around me so that I can feel and be felt by others.

We cannot see things as they truly are, or they are what we see and we can't see what anyone else sees. So why construct an image without purpose?  If what you're trying to fit within doesn't feel comfortable, get out!



The celebrities that I find interesting usually have zero control over their personae (Courtney Love, Grimes, and Fiona Apple) and don't care.  They are raw and real and it inspires me tremendously.  I also enjoy when they have TOO much control over their personae (Lady GaGa, Marilyn Manson) because they're taking their art to such an extreme that it becomes an agenda.  Grimes IS art and GaGa forces you to confront your own art and both of these images make you look at yourself.  The video above makes no sense and that was probably Grimes' unintentional point.  She just gathered together people she liked and visual images that intrigued her and she danced.  I cried watching this because her weirdness feels so genuine to me.

My next tattoo is:

stop.
making.
sense.

and this to me is my zen.  Reminding myself that what I think others think does not matter.  Who I am and that I am confrontationally genuine is what is important to me.  I want to be a Fiona, a Grimes, a Courtney Love.  A brash, bold, ballsy, blunt BITCH.  The witch within is emerging from the gristle she's been hiding amidst.

Fiona Apple, please allow me to express how ardently I admire and love you.

In my life I have taken many opportunities to express my obsession with Fiona Apple, but here in the Current, Etc I have not yet sung her praises loud enough.  I feel like I grew up with Apple, though she is 4 years older than me.  Her lush debut “Tidal” saw me through my first makeout sessions and first hate-breakups, then more than a decade later saw me walking down the aisle.  She is a rare artist in that she actually waits until she has exceptional material before she releases music, feels no urgency and makes an album simply when it’s time to make an album.  I have always admired her raw sensibility, the way she says what she’s thinking the moment she’s thinking it without any guard stronger than the shield of her inability to communicate with most normal people.  I assure you, I count this as an extreme virtue.  Blunt honesty is undervalued, especially in the world of celebrity.  I knew she was one of my people the moment she made that infamous speech at the MTV Music Awards back in the late ‘90s.  People tend to call Apple angsty, but really she is simply real, having turmoil and depression just like the rest of us.  She is the embodiment of awkward and admits her inadequacies with reckless abandon and it is brilliant and beautiful and grotesque all within the space of one ragged breath.

Fiona Apple is one of the only artists whom I will trust enough to purchase her album the day it comes out without hearing any of it first, as I did with “The Idler Wheel is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do” when it arrived Tuesday.  She only writes one album per seven-ish years, but it’s always worth the wait, and this endeavor is no exception to the Apple barometer of excellence.

Speaking about who Fiona is is directly speaking about how her music sounds.  She is as genuine in her sound as she is in her actions.  Her words are raw and her music is unsettling when she feels unsettled, and she does here, most definitely.  Her musical timing is discordant and doesn’t hit on the beats you think they will.  For this reason, I had a headache the first time I listened to “Idler Wheel...”, but the thing with this album is that it is imperative that you listen to it without any other distractions.  Let Fiona Fiona all over you, with headphones on.  You probably won’t like it at first, but give it a second and third try and you’ll begin to feel more than you have in years.  You’ll begin to say things like “The bare eccentric percussion that serves as an accompaniment to her witty and perfectly-placed piano melodies do nothing but accentuate her developed, rich, and emotionally articulate vocals”, such as another raw and beautiful singer named Jonathan said to me today.  If you’ve ever felt a kinship with Fiona Apple, buy this record now.

Best Song (so far, as I’m sure this will change daily over the next year, then weekly the year after that, then yearly the decades after that, as this is how “Tidal” still effects me 16 years after its’ release): "Valentine"

Best Lyrics: “Just tolerate my little fist tugging on your forest chest.”