I’d Rather Keep Listening to Blaqk Audio than Write This Update
I’ve been listening to a lot of music lately, bouncing from Blur to System of a Down to Beatles to Foster the People to Metric and back again. But for the most part, while I’m driving, writing, editing, hammering or cutting, there’s really just one group I’ve left on repeat for days on end, which is funny given they’ve only two albums.
Blaqk Audio.
I don’t remember where I was when I heard “Stiff Kittens” the first time. It was in college, so that may play a part of it, but when I did, I nailed tracked down CexCells, Blaqk Audio’s debut, soon as I could. I’d already loved AFI, which shares Davey Havok, the lead singer, but this was something else, something new, undaunted, unforgiving.
My roommate and I listened to it while we were studying, videogaming, or just BSing more often than anything else after I’d bought it—a bit of an oddity, given we had basically nothing in common music-wise. But “Stiff Kittens” is sort of like Taylor Swift’s “Shake it Off” or Justin Bieber’s “What Do You Mean?” in that it’s a perfect blend of beat, pop, lyrics and energy. It just makes me want to bop my head, shake my leg and sing at the top of my voice every time those first concussive keyboards rip through the headphones. Yes, even in the middle of the office.
But my favorite song (for now, given they’ve a new album coming out next month) came from their second outing, Bright Black Heaven. “Faith Healer,” its third song, gets me going like nothing else. I find myself singing it at the most inappropriate times, like in the elevator or at the urinal or even standing in front of the printer.
Oh-oh-oh, don’t you know-oh-oh?
If you come down, down, down
I know a little sin to which we can aspire…
Oh, it’s so good.
There’s a reason I’m talking about this. I’ve a history of writing about music after all, and there’s a great deal more of that you haven’t even begun to see. But listening to Blaqk Audio, it sends me somewhere. I can explore these different paths of memory, both happy and sad, endearing and depressing, can recall events, people, situations more clearly, see faces, hear words, consider things from different perspectives.
This music, Blaqk Audio’s offering, it’s a drug trip. And it’s having such an impact on my writing I can’t even begin to fully explain it.
But I suppose once you read Book Four, you’ll see what I mean.
Blaqk Audio.
I don’t remember where I was when I heard “Stiff Kittens” the first time. It was in college, so that may play a part of it, but when I did, I nailed tracked down CexCells, Blaqk Audio’s debut, soon as I could. I’d already loved AFI, which shares Davey Havok, the lead singer, but this was something else, something new, undaunted, unforgiving.
My roommate and I listened to it while we were studying, videogaming, or just BSing more often than anything else after I’d bought it—a bit of an oddity, given we had basically nothing in common music-wise. But “Stiff Kittens” is sort of like Taylor Swift’s “Shake it Off” or Justin Bieber’s “What Do You Mean?” in that it’s a perfect blend of beat, pop, lyrics and energy. It just makes me want to bop my head, shake my leg and sing at the top of my voice every time those first concussive keyboards rip through the headphones. Yes, even in the middle of the office.
But my favorite song (for now, given they’ve a new album coming out next month) came from their second outing, Bright Black Heaven. “Faith Healer,” its third song, gets me going like nothing else. I find myself singing it at the most inappropriate times, like in the elevator or at the urinal or even standing in front of the printer.
Oh-oh-oh, don’t you know-oh-oh?
If you come down, down, down
I know a little sin to which we can aspire…
Oh, it’s so good.
There’s a reason I’m talking about this. I’ve a history of writing about music after all, and there’s a great deal more of that you haven’t even begun to see. But listening to Blaqk Audio, it sends me somewhere. I can explore these different paths of memory, both happy and sad, endearing and depressing, can recall events, people, situations more clearly, see faces, hear words, consider things from different perspectives.
This music, Blaqk Audio’s offering, it’s a drug trip. And it’s having such an impact on my writing I can’t even begin to fully explain it.
But I suppose once you read Book Four, you’ll see what I mean.
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