The first day of my vacation that I haven’t actually gone to work! Instead, I … worked at home! Listening through a handful of older CDs, I was reminded of the review I’d written a while ago for the defunct Synergy Magazine. Yes, it is a cheap Calvino ripoff. I’m okay with that.
Of Montreal
Satanic Panic in the Attic
Polyvinyl
By Antero Garcia
You’ve just gotten back from the store, anxious to put in the record you’ve just bought, giddy and without any concerns other than this troubling plastic wrapper and sticker on the spine of the jewel case. Why do they make these things so difficult, you mutter to yourself. You’ve heard good things about this new Of Montreal CD, and that the group recently reissued some of it’s older catalog, you said to yourself, why not? You’ve been looking for a change, and the group is (somehow, but you’re not exactly sure how) connected to bands like Neutral Milk Hotel, Elf Power, Olivia Tremor Control… something about 6 Elephants or something, but the lip piercing and Yo La Tengo 1994 tour t-shirt of the salesman at the record store told you that you we’re an idiot if you had to ask. You make your purchase and find yourself in the quandary you are currently in, fighting with plastic to open up and hear the magic The intricate art promises psychedelia. Something warm, comforting and (hold the applause please) “enlightening.”
But when the CD is finally wrenched from its case and cradled in the player, the sound the speakers coo is not sunny. It’s icy, almost insincere. It’s synthesizers it feels like unfriendly disco and this Rundgren-esque voice is saying something about “poppet,” that stupid phrase brits use endearingly. You hate it. It’s inane and elementary and you’re impatient for the record to proceed, move on from this unfortunate mishap. You admit that in another setting, this would be something you could possibly see yourself enjoying. You think all of this and the song feels too long. It won’t end and you resort to thinking ill thoughts toward the CD, another wasted purchase.
You check the CD player and you’ve somehow bled into the second track, the world is different now, somehow change yet suggesting an immutability a permanence. Yeah, this is more like it. This is something you’d like to listen to, now we’re talking. This is the pop playground you believed always existed, what Of Montreal would always sound like… This is pure pop bliss, the kind of verse and delivery you could – and want to – listen to all day. Goddamn, listen to that! You want it to never stop. And all too suddenly, and exactly when, in your mind, you uttered that last syllable, “stop,” it falls dead, a deflated balloon animal, lampooning all you ever wanted in music. You curse yourself for even thinking, “stop,” for even mentioning the idea to whatever deity that is pulling the levers behind this album. There must be some mistake, there could be a defect or – … – no, you check the CD player, track two is still ticking through but now it’s all weird noodling, a completely different song in the same track. It’s a so-so song, but you sure wish you could go back to the one that was there a moment ago. Why can’t you hold onto a good thing when you find it? C’est La Vie, you reassure yourself, and continue to work your way through the sloppy mess of an album this is turning out to be.
For a while nothing is turning out any better. One moment it’s absolute brilliance, only to be discarded like a worthless, unwanted trinket. Listen to that “Climb the Ladder” song! You want it to last, you love it, maybe it’s even better than that song that started track two – you’re not sure, so much has happened since then, so many songs come and gone.
And it’s all moving too fast for you. So many great ideas are whizzing by and recirculating. The transcircularities of harmony and dissonance lunging – no, nagging – in your ears. Two divorced parents pulling you in opposite directions.
You scream stop and this time it doesn’t happen. The Satanic Panic has taken hold of you, and all you want is to go back…. You want the kind of CD that has been lining your shelves for years. 12 songs played straight, some pretty good, some you always skip. You wish critics didn’t so easily dupe you, and you wish this CD wasn’t so … so … different, so schizophrenic, so manic in execution.
There are only a couple of tracks left. You play with the idea of turning it off and catching up on the latest TV game show, but you decide to wait out the auditory pestilence that plagues your stereo. The music doesn’t change, yet there’s something different. Some sort of sense of puzzle pieces coming together, as if each diffracted moment of the record is some part of the larger picture. Perhaps.
Finally, you arrive at an end: a realization that the chase is what you wanted all along, not actually arriving at the song. You have ventured far, several lifetimes at least, have become wiser by your journey’s course, and you realize now that it was the sites along the way – those momentary glimpses – that were what you were reaching for. Nothing more than fleeting beauty, just a half second of it to change your life.
Love is a pursuit. Once you are nestled close enough to grasp it, love is banal. You close your eyes. You’ll press play again in the morning. You smile, satisfied, and wonder where you’ll wander tomorrow.
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