A Good Read A Good Listen and a Good Drink: Bahhaj Taherzadeh, We/Or/Me

It’s a simple yet sublime pleasure, and just thinking about it can make you feel a little calmer, a little more content. Imagine: You bring out one of the good rocks glasses (or your favorite mug or a special occasion tea cup) and pour a couple fingers of amber liquid (or something dark and strong or just some whole milk). You drop the needle on the jazz platter (or pull up a blues album on your mp3 player or dig out that mixtape from college). Ensconcing yourself in the coziest seat in the house, you crack the spine on a classic (or find your place in that sci-fi paperback or pull up a biography on your e-book reader). And then, you go away for a while. Ah, bliss.

In this series, some of NTSIB’s friends share beloved albums, books and drinks to recommend or inspire.


We/Or/Me (Bahhaj Taherzadeh) occupies a unique place in the musical world: he’s a Persian/Irish singer-songwriter. He grew up in Dublin and now lives in Chicago; he got his start when, after years of writing songs on the sly and sharing them with only a limited circle of friends, Glen Hansard called him to the stage one night and commanded him to sing.

His first record, Everything Behind Us is a Dream, will be turned loose upon the world at the end of January 2016. I have listened to it, and, ladies and gentlemen, it is a delight. His songs are spare, delicate, elegantly constructed, and overall just lovely.

Sea Wall is not the first single, but it is my favorite:

And with that, I turn the floor over to Mr. Taherzadeh, who joins us today to share a favorite book, song and drink:


Photo credit: Liza Mitchell

Photo credit: Liza Mitchell

A Good Read

Werner Herzog — Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the making of Fitzcarraldo

A filmmaker’s production diary doesn’t necessarily scream “highbrow literature” but Werner Herzog is not an ordinary filmmaker, nor was his film Fitzcarraldo an ordinary undertaking. In recent years Herzog seems to have become a caricature of himself, an uncompromising and severe man who makes nothing but extreme and bleak statements about art and the futility of existence. And while he seems to have lightened up enough to be in on the joke, that doesn’t make his convictions any less real. You won’t learn a lot about filmmaking by reading Conquest of the Useless. You won’t even learn a lot about the specific film that the book documents.

What you get is the internal landscape of Herzog’s mind as he navigates life in the Amazonian jungle. He observes the unyielding savagery of nature, he confronts cobras, witnesses death (both animal and human), curses financiers, negotiates with native tribes, and embraces a wild conflict with one of his actors. That he has to oversee the dragging of an actual steamship over a mountain in order to realize his vision and complete his film seems perfectly natural in the context of everything that surrounds it.

The action described in this book is chaotic and disorienting, but Herzog’s voice is steady and calm throughout and it is rendered in achingly beautiful prose. If you ever find yourself overwhelmed by an artistic project, read this book. It will likely put your struggles in perspective and it might make your convictions a little firmer.

A Good Listen

Songs:Ohia — Farewell Transmission

I don’t understand anything about this song. I don’t know what it’s about. I don’t know what he’s saying exactly, what he is describing, but it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up every time. Jason Molina’s music has always had a harrowing, damaged quality to it, but since his death it is all the harder to listen to. There is something transcendent about this track though. Something indefinable. No one is quite sure if this is a Songs:Ohia record or a Magnolia Electric Co. record. It now serves as a transition between the two identities. Almost everything leading up to this point in the Molina canon had been sparse and lonely sounding. Suddenly it sounded as though there were a lot of people in the room.

It was the opening track on a record that represented a new chapter in the life of an extraordinary artist. To me it is the sound of a man putting all his cards on the table. It is triumphant and desperate all at once. I met Jason on a train once. I was listening to his music on an ipod, and I turned around to find that he was standing behind me. We were the only ones in the car. It was a strange, dreamlike experience. We spoke for some time and then kept in touch a little after that. If I didn’t have some record of our correspondence, I’m not sure I would be certain the encounter was real. John O’Donohue wrote that “transience makes a ghost of each experience.” It is a line that seems to pretty well sum up my connection to Jason and his music.

Songs: Ohia - Farewell Transmission

A Good Drink

I don’t drink alcoholic beverages, so I have no craft beer suggestions or cocktail recipes to share. I drink a lot of coffee, usually Americanos. I use an aeropress at home but I have a love/hate relationship with it. I’m struggling to think of something to recommend. Oh, I’ve got it! Reed’s Premium Ginger Brew. It is the most refined soda you will ever drink. They claim to sweeten it with “Canadian white-water clover honey.” I don’t know if that’s a real thing, but the taste is unreasonably good. Maybe if everyone who reads this tweets about it to Reed’s, they will send me a lifetime supply of the drink for free? Please everyone do this. I’m counting on it.

tinörks, ODOMYUNICA

tinorks

tinörks, of Osaka, Japan, is a folktronica band. I was intrigued by this mainly because I wondered how “folktronica” manifested, exactly. In this instance, at least, it’s a ambient experimental noise with a soothing, gentle texture. It’s what I imagine a Zen garden would sound like, if a Zen garden had hands and could use a keyboard.

Here are three songs from ODOMYUNICA, which is, as best I can tell, their sixth and most recent record. You can hear the rest, and explore their back catalog, on bandcamp.

Komorebi [after a rain]: After a spring rain, I think, when everything looks bright and clean, as opposed to an autumn rain, when the world has a bruised cast to it. This is for a cheerful, hopeful nourishing shower, not a downpour.

Ljus och snö [candles and snow]: At least part of this record was inspired by the Northern Lights; this song does sound like the warm glow of candles in the window during a winter snowfall while the sky is ablaze with colors.

Railnöscape [rainscape]: This rain is a little bit . . . I don’t know, more jagged? A shade grayer, I suppose. Icy droplets that propel one to hurry between stores and get the errands done quickly.

Los Porcos, Porco Mio

unnamed(1)

I am not normally one for yacht rock, but somehow, Los Porcos have won me over. I suspect it may be that the idea of pig-themed yacht rock is so deliciously absurd that I just can’t resist.

So you can see the awesome album art and hear one of their tunes, here’s Porc Noise Complaint, from Porco Mio, their new EP:

Long may you glide, my porcine friends; may yours breezes always be soft and warm, and your champagne never grow warm.

Taxes, Lost At Sea / Your Other Left

taxesremix

Below are two remixes from Taxes: Lost at Sea, which is about clinging to love in the face of disaster, and Your Other Left, which is about a commingling of nostalgia and rage into a curdled stew of bitterness. I listened to the originals, and Lost At Sea has been expanded and given some quasi-orchestral layers, while Your Other Left has been completely reconfigured in tone and tempo, to align with that of Lost At Sea.

They are both very good, and you should listen to them:

Lungs and Limbs, Lifelike

lifelike2

Lungs and Limbs are from San Francisco, CA. Lifelike is their first EP.

I’ve been listening to it on and off for a few days now. I keep drifting back to it as a palate cleanser. It’s pop music, light enough to encourage repeat listening, but there’s some thudding drums and reverb in there to add some weight and texture.

This is So Sweet, the first song, and, as it happens, the one that hooked me:

I’m also fond of Kaleidoscope, because I’m intrigued by the way they use light as a metaphor in the lyrics, and strategically deploy bright shining synth tones throughout the song:

Two Songs From: Killing Kuddles

Ok kids. We’re switching gears. Putting the ethereal experimental noise back on the shelf and taking down the obnoxious noisy punk rock with a little bit of folky swing winding through it.

Killing Kuddles are from Atlanta, and today we’re going to listen to Sinking Ship and Dirty Mouth from Sinking Ship, from an EP they put out this summer.

Sinking Ship is also the first song, and when the guitars kicked in I just kind of smiled and nodded, because awww, yeah. Put this on your roadtrip playlist when you blow out of town in search of a fresh start.

Dirty Mouth has a little bit of rockabilly flavor – but is played at breakneck punk speed. Mostly about cursing and staying up late and trying to not let your mom know you get up to those kinds of shenanigans.

Jump, Little Children: Cathedrals

Shortly after 9/11, a friend of mine heard a drag queen perform Cathedrals by Jump, Little Children at an open mic night in New York. Her retelling of the scene was so vivid that ever since then, I have associated the song with the aftermath of that day, as well as the message I saw scrawled on a dusty car in Lower Manhattan: You can knock us down, but you can’t knock us out.

Our hearts and thoughts are with you, Paris, and Beirut, and all the places where terrible people have done such awful things.

Jump Little Children - Cathedrals

Trick Mist, Jars in Rows

trickmist

Trick Mist is Gavin Murray, Irishman residing in Manchester, England. Jars in Rows is his debut EP, and it’s an unusual but awesome fusion of electronica/experimental noise and traditional Irish sounds.

Here are some examples:

Tampering Happy, was made with a violin he found in a trashcan he found outside his apartment – in pristine condition! – which is – ok, bear with me here – a bit like a sea shanty, deconstructed and filtered through a film noir lens.

Your Brass Angel is a spare, delicate, tune, shot through with steady shimmery tones, balanced by clacks and pings and the solid basso of his voice. It’s hard to describe, other than to say I really enjoyed sitting in his tiny oddly decorated Buckyball of sound.

AF THE NAYSAYER feat. Shizuku Kawahara, R-96

AF THE NAYSAYER is one of my favorite beatmakers, and he’s back again with a new tune. R-96 is a collaboration with Shizuku Kawahara of tinörks. It’s a rollercoaster, but a very chill one.

Check it out:

Also, special alert to our Southern readers, he’s helping Step Pepper Records celebrate their 5th birthday tomorrow (Saturday, Nov. 14) in Birmingham, AL, so get out and join the party if you can.