Album of the Month: THE LONG GOODBYE by Pere Ubu

The other night, I could not fall asleep and decided to listen to a record until my mind switched off. I flicked through my phone and the album that I chose (possibly accidentally but possibly not) was the new album by Pere Ubu. Normally, I would expect a drop-off at some point in the middle of song number five, but this time I had to listen until the end. Because for thirty-eight minutes after 4 a.m., The Long Goodbye sounded like the album of the year. And, as it happened, I would not fall asleep until the break of dawn.  

Pere Ubu are not a band I listen to a lot. I do consider myself a big fan of Dub Housing and especially The Modern Dance (plus, their first two singles were phenomenal), but even with those albums... I'm just not in the habit of pulling them out too often. When I do that, however, and they click - they click like nothing else in the world.

For instance, on the night I was describing earlier, the insane synths made perfect sense, and there was not a sound sweeter, or more bizarre, than the sound of David Thomas pronouncing 'Los Angeles'. In fact, the sound of The Long Goodbye is absolutely gorgeous in its sheer synths-drenched weirdness. There is not much guitar but the bursts in "What I Heard On The Pop Radio" or the perfectly titled "Flicking Cigarettes At The Sun" are brilliant. 

The Long Goodbye could of course turn out to be Pere Ubu's last album. In fact, it was meant as such, and only later did it transpire that David Thomas's fortunes changed and his health started to improve. This is promising because even though The Long Goodbye would be a great swan song for the band (and there is a band, and their contributions are sporadic but meaningful), I sincerely hope Thomas could do it all over again. Because no one else can make music this awkward, and this effortless. 

This is my album of the month, easily, and yet I'm not sure I can safely recommend this to a casual listener or even a reader of this blog. The Long Goodbye is seriously left-field stuff that sounds like a particularly deranged film noir, or a novel by Jim Thompson (who is referenced in "Fortunate Son"), an album that matches the cover picture perfectly. Having said all that, there is no guarantee that this stuff will not click. 

And I do wish that upon you. Because when Pere Ubu clicks, well, it is a curse, a trap, and an absolute privilege.  

My Cultural Lowlights: MARY CASSATT

These days, when you walk through the wonderful selection of Impressionist paintings in the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., you are bound to notice a dozen or so works by Mary Cassatt. I say a dozen, but you will end up thinking there is a good hundred of them. They will jump at you from behind a striking view of Paris captured by Pissarro or they will glare at you from under the newspaper of Cézanne's father or they will, in all honesty, bring you back to earth after the beautiful reverie of staring at Woman with a Parasol. 

I think there is an elephant in the room here, and the elephant is done with crude brush strokes: Mary Cassatt's paintings are simply not that good. 

The most offensive thing about them is that they look like copies, not original works. Degas is all over these paintings, but, really, they are influenced by any number of Impressionists. They are not second-rate as the technique is there and the colours have that rough, rich quality to them. Rather, I would argue that Mary Cassatt's works look second-hand. They look like someone had already done that particular scene, and done it better. 

Besides, it is hard to look past those faces. The two ladies from The Loge (1882) are off. There is no mystery about the eyes, no personality to the facial features. They look plain, and that is one crime Impressionist artists could never commit. I am almost reminded of a scene from The Man Who Wasn't There where a piano teacher has this to say about the playing of a young and promising girl: "She plays too polite". Which is also true for Mary Cassatt. She painted too polite, too safe, and at times it feels that the best her paintings could amount to was a faithful homage. After all, Monet's "The Artist's Garden at Vétheuil" is hanging right across the room.

Now obviously there is another elephant in the room here, and this elephant is even bigger and it has to do with why Mary Cassatt is there in the first place, on those huge white walls, alongside Renoirs and van Goghs and Sisleys. But this elephant I would rather not touch, or it might explode into a million dots that would not assemble into anything quite as beautiful as a painting by Georges Seurat. 

travelling notes (cviii)

The one thing I dislike about airports is that all the diversity you have been admiring up to that point is reduced to dull randomness. 

travelling notes (cvii)

Travelling, like everything else in life, is all about the morning. 

travelling notes (cvi)

I think I would not enjoy the image of a surfer catching the wave quite so much if they did not fall at the end of it.

travelling notes (cv)

It took California to fall in love with The Lovin' Spoonful like never before. "Coconut Grove", "Daydream", "Didn't Want To Have To Do It"... It's the perfect convergence of the music and the setting that you just wouldn't encounter in everyday life. 

travelling notes (civ)

"Beauty is pain", said an American girl on a Coaster train to Encinitas. "Pain is beauty", said her boyfriend, pensively, seconds later.