So because my partner is a student at our local university she qualifies for a bundle, only available to future capitalist bootlickers and the small handful that seek to destroy them that currently make up higher eduction, of Showtime, Hulu, and Spotify for the stupidly low price of $4.99. While we did it for the Twin Peaks access, and Sorry To Bother You, the tipping point was Spotify, a platform that--much like anything else these days--could best be described as "fucking problematic."
We'll debate/argue the merits/drawback of Spotify some other time. Or maybe not at all. I'm not sure I really give that much of a fuck. Anyway, we added some stuff to our "library," and it means more music in our lives, and more music in our lives is, to a point, a good thing. But every week Spotify, or more specifically, an algorithm designed by some dickface working (or more likely interning) for Spotify recommends us some new music. And you know what? Some of it's pretty good! Good job, algorithm!
I shit you not, I actually had a dream this week where I was apologizing to my YouTube algorithm generator for clicking on such a confusing array of stuff. I have some weird goddamn dreams sometimes.
So I thought I'd do a column here about songs that move/stimulate some kind of emotion/thought in me, and see where it takes me/you/us.
I've made some rules for myself. I'm going to try and focus on songs that have less than 3,000 listens, or more than 1,000,000, at the time of writing. I'm not going to do any research whatsoever. I'm tired of reading reviews that are more a reaction to an artist's press release and biography (and indirectly, their publicist/label/hometown) than a reaction to their music.
We begin with someone called Joose Keskitalo. I've asked around the house, but no one knows what language it is. I was thinking either eastern Europe or northern Africa but my partner (the student), said maybe Scandinavian. And I know I could find the information in under 15 seconds, but for some reason I like the not-knowing more than the knowing.
I like the song more than anything. It combines the dust of all those Tucson bands from a couple decades back with Dylan's strung-out harmonica playing from the Royal Albert Hall show and Morphine's baritone sax. And then there's the singer who intones every word with empathy and precision. There's those weird seagull sounds.
It feels like something you'd listen to as the pollution rolled off the Salton Sea and you sat in your living room with your lungs turning into rust and your eyes caked over with sugar.
These are sad times. This is a sad song. I am a sad person. There is beauty in sadness. There is something to be learned, to be processed. Above all, there is something to be felt. The mystery is in ourselves as much as it is in the song. Joose Keskialo may be the name of a group. It may be the name of a person. But whoever they are, this is something they understood a long time ago.
.
The rest of the album's kind of hit or miss. But damn, that harmonica. And I hate harmonicas.
(Note: I got deep into the weeds on the thing about the Pelly Raincoats book. And what I thought would be a few stray thoughts is taking longer than I thought. Maybe within the week.)
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