Schnipper’s Slept On
- story THE FADER
Each Tuesday, FADER editor Matthew Schnipper highlights an underappreciated recent release he thinks we need to know about. This week it’s Out Hud’s album S.T.R.E.E.T. D.A.D. which you can purchase here. More after the jump.
Flying on a plane two weeks ago, before I thought I was going to die from extreme turbulence and very low dipping turns, I read some JM Coetzee:
“It is like a sea beating against his skull. Indeed, for all he knows he could already be lost overboard, tugged to and fro by the currents of the deep. The slap of water that will in time strip his bones of the last sliver of flesh. Pearls of his eyes; coral of his bones.”
“Pearls of his eyes; coral of his bones.” “Coral of his bones,” “coral of his bones,” “coral of his bones.” That is what I thought about when the plane was going to crash. Then I thought “I’m going to die.” And then “Why would you die.” And then “Coral of his bones” over and over. And then “You are so melodramatic” and then “Is it melodramatic if I actually die?” and then “Why do I have to think about JM Coetzee before I die, if I actually do die?” If you would like to feel pathetic, read JM Coetzee, then think you are going to die while knowing that you aren’t really (but not 100% knowing) and then think about lush prose and then hate yourself. It’s a life.
Part of the reason I have always liked non-English languages is because I don’t understand them. It’s good to hear words and not know what they are. I had a huge problem with Caetano Veloso in English for a very long time. (“You don’t know me at all/ And you’ll never get to know me”). Out Hud, on their first album S.T.R.E.E.T. D.A.D. kept the verbiage to the song titles (“Dad, There’s a Little Phrase Called Too Much Information”) and kept their voices out of the music. In a very glowing Pitchfork review, Eric Carr says “Out Hud can express more in one elegant passage than a week’s worth of Derrida, and all without saying a word.” This is many things, but a bunch of hooey is foremost among them. Have you read Derrida? No one is saying more than him. I’ll stick with the understatement of “coral of his bones” and the non-statement of Out Hud. Because, really, like every basement crank dat dancer, every amateur Ricky Blaze, I believe in the healing power of music. You don’t need to say shit about Out Hud, you just need this:
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- posted on Mar 25, 2008 in SLEPT ON
- tags electronic/dance, Out Hud
