Listen to this song right here

and then

check this song out too!

Laura Stevenson is from Brooklyn and is part of the Bomb the Music Industry collective. I guess this album was originally released in 2008 as a download only, but it has been re-released last week on cd and vinyl with three extra songs. She sounds like a mixture of Laura Gibson, Sufjan Stevens, and Iggy Pop; and I know that sounds strange but it sure makes for a fun record. I just heard of this yesterday and Itunes says I’ve listened to this album four times already. It’s that good.

You can download the album here, but I would highly suggest buying it here.

Stereopathic is pleased to announce totally blown away that Shearwater is playing at the Bell Tower in Pullman on Tuesday, April 20th Friday, April 30th. The show starts at 8 PM. We’re lining up a local act to kick things off; Lawrence, Kansas’ Hospital Ships opens, followed by Shearwater’s thrilling and epic live show.

Shearwater, of course, will be touring in support of their forthcoming Matador LP, The Golden Archipelago, 2010′s follow-up to their killer 2008 record Rook. Lead single “Castaways” has been floating around for a few weeks now; nab it from Matador Records.  Billions has a glowing (but not hyperbolic) write-up. 2007′s Palo Santo and Rook leave no doubt that Jonathan Meiburg can write a thoughtful and compelling song, and that his band has struck upon a distinct and beautiful sound all its own.

What’ll the show set you back? $12 if you pay ahead, $15 if you wait till you’re at the Bell Tower door on the night of the show. Keep an eye out here for more details and eye candy, not to mention a record review and anything else we can pass along to y’all. Spread the word, tweet it and retweet it, and see you there.

The Hunter’s Star from 2008′s Rook

The band’s 2006 Daytrotter Session

When I heard Phil Elverum would be making a Mount Eerie album influenced by Scandinavian black metal, I worried. Black metal typically manifests as maudlin nihilism, and hasn’t drawn me in. While Wind’s Poem does contain some chaotic, heavy, distorted passages, it also goes subdued with tracks like this one, which closes the album. It also bears mentioning that Elverum has tended to punctuate with noise and distortion throughout his career, last year’s Lost Wisdom being a notable exception.

On “Stone’s Ode” the lyrics work with familiar Elverum themes. The stone is a solid thing which an unseen wind works to destroy. This fits into the existence vs. annihilation, ephemera of the body vs. the juggernaut of nature, sort of dichotomies Mount Eerie has always dealt in. To say the lyrics are heavy, weary, and obsessed with death is to say it’s a Mount Eerie song.

The music narrates the lyrics without straying into over-exposition. An ever-present synth line voices the wind, in the background and wearing away. When night falls, the key of the song shifts down and hangs on one chord as cymbals build. The song returns and moves to a quick end. Through this, the music manages to stay light, and becomes lighter as voices sing a wordless song, which we might assume is the wind. We know that for Elverum the wind is a destroyer, but the song indicates that at times it does slow, gentle work. The song plays with heaviness and lightness, which also happens from song to song on the rest of the album.

Listen to the entire album on NPR’s Exclusive First Listen.

Buy the record from Phil.

MP3: Mount Eerie – “Stone’s Ode”

-Josh Stevenson lives and works in Moscow, ID.

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August 11

I’m mystified. Last night in my dream there was a guy who sort of looked like my boss yelling at me for all the work I hadn’t done, because I’d gotten really into re-editing the Wikipedia page about Internet addiction. I still have no idea what it means. I also had the dream about eating my pillow. When I woke up, the Jet-Puffed Marshmallows I keep by the side of the bed were gone.

August 12

Dreams really are inscrutable. Last night I had this dream where I got crushed underneath every word I’ve ever typed in an IM conversation. Then this guy who kind of looked like my boss tried to help me but got trapped as well. I’m baffled. I also dreamed that I ate a chicken that looked like my dad, but when I woke up, Pops was sleeping soundly on the floor right next to my bed, just like always.

August 13

Who can know the whims of the unconscious? Last night I dreamt that I was at work playing a computer game for toddlers called The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud, but it was so hard that I couldn’t figure it out. Then a baby who looked like my boss beat the game and threatened to set me on fire. Weird, right? I also dreamed that I ate my laptop, and when I woke up the chocolate laptop I’d been saving for the weekend was gone.

August 14

I fell asleep at work today and had this dream where my family and friends and co-workers and everyone crowded around me and told me I had a problem. But right when they were about to tell me what the problem was, I was rudely awakened by my boss, who’d gathered my family and friends and co-workers around me to tell me I had a problem, which made me really mad. I started yelling at them before they told me what the problem was. I stormed out and bought a soothing bag of marshmallows and went home and slept. I didn’t really have any dreams, except for the one where everything below me is burning and I fly away in a bed shaped like the internet. I think that one demonstrates the importance of dreams and how nothing can stop you if you just believe in them.

MP3: The Zombies – “Hung Up On a Dream”

- Flann O’Rion lives in Eugene, OR and never dreams.

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Several years ago a couple in their seventies used to come to the park near my house with metal detectors. They’d show up about once a week. Around their waists they both wore small aprons with pockets to collect their finds; the kind a waitress might use for tips. I liked the idea that they were working so quickly they needed to stash their winnings on-the-go, heedless of what they’d dug up until later. Since I didn’t usually have much to do in the evenings, I sat and watched them whenever they showed up.

In this way, I became increasingly curious about them. They never found anything in the park. I couldn’t understand why they came back to my park so consistently. Occasionally one of them would fixate on a spot, take out a small object shaped like a grill lighter, and dig it into the wood chips, but they never retrieved anything.

Finally one day, feeling creepy, I decided to follow them to their next site, and then to the next. I accidentally followed them home. I had never done anything this obsessive, not even after Lucy left me. I never followed her anywhere. So, I figured out their route. They went twice a week. They had all kinds of spots, most of them pretty successful, but my park was the only one they hit every week.

Because they never found anything there, but came back every week, I figured that the park had some special meaning for them. They used to go there in their youth. They met there. Maybe they used to bring their children there. Lucy and I used to swing there in the evenings. It was a nice park.

I was impressed with my tailing skills until I got arrested. I couldn’t explain my actions, which counted against me. Eventually the couple asked to speak with me. An officer accompanied me to their home, where I sat on their couch and drank iced tea. I’d expected their house to be decorated with their finds. I expected metal detecting to be the substance of their lives. The only evidence of the hobby was the grill lighter shaped object left out on the counter. I explained how I’d gotten interested in them, and finally asked what it was that brought them back to the park. “Have you ever found anything there?” I asked.

“No,” said Mr. Trumble.

“Then why do you come back?” I asked

“We come back,” Mrs. Trumble broke in, “because the wood chips are so easy to dig in. As soon as anything shows up there, we’ll find it, and without any effort. The digging’s the part I hate the most.”

“Me too,” said Mr. Trumble. They smiled at me. “Any other questions?”

I asked them what the grill lighter thing was. They dropped the charges.

MP3: Taken by Trees – “Lost and Found”

-Sven Gull lives outside of Philadelphia with his wife, Alma. He’s never followed anyone anywhere. The thought of it bugs him.

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Mel and I watched everyone walking past. We guessed about what everyone did. We sat on the bench in front of the playground facing toward the street. It’s about twenty yards to the street from the bench and in the early evening we used to do a lot of people-watching. We both wore jackets; mine olive, Mel’s a surprising shade of red. Mel said the sky looked like the yellow inside of a foam pillow ripped up by dogs and scattered across the sky. I couldn’t agree. I claimed it looked like a patient waking up just after the ether, eyes clear in front of a fogged brain. Mel stuck to his guns.

A man wearing pants with plastic buckles at the ankles. Bald on top, with a bird’s nest of hair running around the sides. “Billabong,” his shirt said. I said that he owned his own cleaning company. Mel said he sold pot, which he might have had on authority. I didn’t ask. Mel still had this element of a private life that I wasn’t part of. He might have just liked to hint at its edginess. I didn’t like it.

A woman with a cat face, short hair, calf-length black polyester skirt, scarf bunched at her throat. She took a full minute to cross our field of vision. We both said, “Real-estate.”

A man of medium-build and all muscle, head shaved close, grey t-shirt, olive pants. I said, “Hitman.” Mel said, “Dancer.” We looked at each other. I wished that I had said “dancer.” Mel said, “I wish I had said ‘hitman.’” I leaned against him. That was the first time our opinions diverged and we didn’t fight and saw that we were not the same and each wanted to be more like the other.

MP3: A.C. Newman – “Like a Hitman, Like a Dancer”

- Therese Illus lives alone in Rhode Island.

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Two men, Tolly and Stephen, have shut themselves up in a room. They’re adapting Tolly’s off-Broadway play,The Heart Within the Heart, for the screen.

Stephen: So, in the play Robbie and Jeff are gay?

Tolly: No. They’re brothers.

Stephen: So why do they live in the same room?

Tolly: Because they’re brothers and their family’s a little poor, so they have to share a room.

Stephen: Well, I guess you would know. But that’s kind of a bummer. Because you know what’s really funny? Gays.

Tolly: I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to say that.

Stephen: Anyway, I really want to get down to the heart of The Heart Within the Heart so we can make sure we preserve your intent.

Tolly: That’s what I want too.

Stephen: Even if we have to change a lot of stuff.

Tolly: Like what kind of stuff?

Stephen: Well, I don’t think the dad being gay really works. Gays are funny and you don’t want to confuse people by making a gay guy really mean.

Tolly: Well, that’s fine, because their dad’s not gay.

Stephen: Really?

Tolly: Yeah. Really. What made you think he was gay?

Stephen: Well, that one time where the mother tells him to ‘go to hell’ and he leaves the house and then comes back drunk.

Tolly: And you thought he was gay because he came back drunk.

Stephen: Yeah, well I guess I just imagined him running off and meeting up with his gay lover, this guy who works the soda fountain in town.

Tolly: What are you talking about? The play is set in modern day. There’s no soda fountain. Not to mention, there’s absolutely no gay lover. No one in the play is gay.

Stephen: Well, I guess you would know. It’s just my imagination. Your original play is just so vivid, but also restrained. It seems to me like sometimes it’s what’s not being said that comes across so well.

Tolly: That’s very nice, but no one in the play is gay.

Stephen: Okay. I guess you would know. Oh, and I have to say: I really respect your choice to make the dog straight. It’s not popular these days, and it’s really hard to find a straight dog to play the parts, and the gay dogs hate to play straight, but I just thought that was really, really brave.

Tolly: There’s no dog in the play.

Stephen: No! You’ve got to be kidding me. The little dog that runs around and always tries to look up the female characters’ skirts?

Tolly: No. That never happens. Why would we cast a dog in a stage play? That’s a logistical nightmare.

Stephen: Oh. Are there lots of gay dogs in theater too?

Tolly: Listen, I think I’ve made a mistake. I don’t think that we’re going to be able to work together on this. We’re just coming from two very different points of view.

Stephen: Well, I guess you would know. But I only want what’s best for The Heart Within the Heart, and . . . I don’t know if you’ve seen how well some of my other features have done.

Tolly: Yeah. I have. That’s one reason I was interested in working with you.

Stephen: For instance Too Many Gays had a Ten-Million Dollar Opening weekend. That set me up pretty well.

Tolly: Not bad.

Stephen: And Gay Dad on a Hot Tin Roof earned me four Golden Globes.

Tolly: Okay.

Stephen: And my documentary Barnyard of Opression: Civil Rights for Transgendered Animals appeared on PBS. The reviewers called it, “more thrilling than Ken Burns and preachier than Billy Graham.”

Tolly: Alright. Okay. Let’s do this.

The resulting movie proved very successful. Three years later we find Stephen shut up in a room, working on a television pilot with Terry for The Heart Within the Heart.

Terry: First thing we need to do is make all of the characters gay. Except for the dad and the pig.

Stephen. I couldn’t agree more. But the pig’s supposed to be a dog.

Terry: Nope. Not anymore. The dog’s a pig, on the inside.

The pilot airs on television for the first time. Robert Ben Greensmith, author of the original novel The Heart Within the Heart sits in front of his television and looks aghast as the credits roll.

Robert: I told that damn playwright the dad was supposed to be gay and the pig was supposed to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Can’t get nothin’ to translate nowadays.

MP3: The Magnetic Fields – “I Think I Need A New Heart”

- Flann O’Rion does not have any pets and shares an apartment with his brother in Eugene, Oregon.

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Two former roommates meet at a class reunion. One of them works as a sales rep for Walgreen and the other is a physicist working on the Large Hadron Collider.

Chris: So you’re working on that thing? That’s amazing. Is it going create a black-hole and kill us all? (Laughs)

Lance does not react.

Lance: No, that’s impossible. There’s no way that anything like that could happen. We’re looking for other dimensions.

Chris: Okay. Sure, sure. So, how’s everything going?

Lance: Actually, not terribly well. When we turn it on we get what’s called a quench.

Chris: Yeah, right. Okay, I’ll bite. What’s a quench?

Lance: It’s when a bad solder causes our cables to heat up and lose their superconductivity.

Chris: I hear you, I hear you. Isn’t that what Viagra’s for? (Laughs) Am I right?

Lance does not react. Chris goes on.

Chris: So, Lance. The guys you’re working with? They’re pretty smart, right?

Lance: The best physicists living, and physicists are the smartest kinds of scientists.

Chris: Exactly. I always say that. But you guys aren’t the best solderers living.

Lance shifts on his feet.

Lance: Well, we’re talking about thousands and thousands of minute solders. Also, we don’t do them. We have engineers, and they’re definitely some of the best solderers living.

Chris: Fair enough. But they still didn’t get all of those connections exactly right?

Lance: Well . . .

Chris: It actually seems like they’re getting them a little bit wrong.

Lance: Well, we don’t know exactly why this is happening. It’s a little mysterious.

Chris: Mysterious? As someone who likes not being sucked into a black-hole, this makes me a little nervous

Lance: There’s no way that can happen.

Chris: You’re sure?

Lance: I’m absolutely sure. We’re looking for other dimensions. The theories all suggest . . .

Chris: And you’re testing your theories with the LHC? Why?

Lance: To see if they’re correct.

Chris: Because you’re not sure.

Lance: I’m going to have another Sangria.

MP3: Department of Eagles – “Phantom Other”

- Flann O’Rion doesn’t know anything about physics or the Large Hadron Collider, lives in Eugene, Oregon, and thinks that both characters in this story (and their interactions) are unlikely. Still, he argues, they really don’t know.

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A condemned man, you have to kill the rule.
You have to keep down at mind.

If you have to have me,
break the first born friend
till it pass over me, stricken designs.

Use your keep, if you have to,
you have to sell me over.

If, if, if . . . pass over that die.

MP3: J. Tillman – “First Born”

- Jaque Nay, blind since childhood, memorized all the words and rearranged them in his head every night for a week, just before sleeping. He lives in Chino, California.