MIXTAPE MONDAYS: Songs for Brian Evenson

(Every Monday at Tragically Hipster we'll feature a look at a band, performance, or vague musical concept, with an accompanying virtual mixtape for your listening pleasure. There's no need to thank us; it's just one more service we like to provide for you, our dedicated readers. Most of whom also write for this site.)


A month ago, I didn't have a single book by Brian Evenson. Today, I own almost all of them.

About three weeks ago I received a copy of the latest issue of McSweeney's Quaterly Concern. As I wrote at the time, Brian Evenson's fable "The Book and the Girl" was compelling enough that it inspired me to purchase a copy of his short story collection The Wavering Knife off Amazon in the hopes that the rest of his work would be as interesting as that single, brief story. And it was, more so than I could have hoped.

Before I even finished The Wavering Knife I put in an order for his first story collection, Altmann's Tongue, and then found myself adding his novel The Open Curtain to the cart (for the free shipping, of course). The next day, annoyed that my books had not yet magically arrived at my door, I traipsed down to the local used bookstore and picked up copies of Father of Lies and Contagion. I'm now knee-deep in Evenson books, and once I finish the four currently residing on my nightstand I still have Dark Property and The Din of Celestial Birds to purchase, and then I'll have to really buckle down and try to scrounge up a copy of his limited-run chapbook The Brotherhood of the Mutilation, which already sits high upon my list of Greatest Titles Ever. (If anyone out there in the internetdom can aide me in my chapbook-quest, please drop a note in the comments. It's my understanding that Mutilation has forevermore dissipated into the ether, but maybe one of you kindly hipsters can help a brother out.)

There's a future blog entry coming that will no doubt find me wallowing in the sickening hyperbole of my Evenson-love, but for the time being I'm going to satisfy myself with subjecting you good folks to a playlist comprised entirely of music that sounds, at least within the narrow confines of my own twisted imagination, like Brian Evenson's stories read.

Consequently this week's mixtape features chaotic noise-rock; dark southern-gothic country; murderous yarns; surrealistic narratives; industrial drones; much talk of religions and God and Jesus, none of it comforting; angry cellos mimicking angrier guitars; German horror-a cappella; forebodings of deaths and plagues and apocali; black humor and witty wordplay; all washed and spattered with a river's worth of cynicism and human hemoglobin. Many of these songs are amongst my all-time personal favorites, so it's perhaps little wonder that a writer whose work fits snugly in amongst them might curry some considerable favor with me.

On the Mixtape:

1) "Indestructible Life!" by Old Time Relijun
2) "The Plague" by Scott Walker
3) "Time Jesum Transeuntum et Non Riverentum"
by Nick Cave and The Dirty Three
4) "Halber Mensch" by Einstürzende Neubauten
5) "Everybody Knows" by Leonard Cohen
6) "What We All Want" by Gang of Four
7) "Riding" by Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
8) "Altmann's Tongue" by Brian Evenson, Tamarin & Xingu Hill
9) "Emission Curve" by Bruce Gilbert
10) "Jesus Hits Like the Atom Bomb" by Sterling Jubilee Singers
11) "Misery is the River of the World" by Tom Waits
12) "One" by Apocalyptica
13) "Death to Everyone (Peel Session)" by Will Oldham
14) "The Order of Death" by Public Image, Ltd.
15) "Hallelujah" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
16) "Session #13-1" by Hiroyuki Nagahsima

Quick Notes on Select Songs:
*Nick Cave and Brian Evenson have a similar obsession with religion, violence, and language, so its perhaps no shock to find two Cave songs on the mixtape this week -- and, indeed, I had to restrain myself from putting even more. Both "Time Jesum Transeuntum et Non Riverentum" and "Hallelujah" share that certain kind of surrealistic bent common to Evenson's storytelling: they seem to take place in a distinct world all their own, operating under very specific rules which we're never quite privy to. The result is a pair of songs premised in uncomfortable beauty, lovely in melody but with a strong undertow of confusion and despair lurking just beneath the surface.

*In 2005, Brian Evenson recorded an album with Tamarin & Xingu Hill based around readings from his book Altmann's Tongue. The titular story is read here in its entirety, and gives a good sense of what you're in for when you delve into Evenson's short fiction.

*A group of four cellists with a mean Metallica fetish, Apocalyptica manage to rise above the so-so conventionality of the "string quarter tribute to…" albums and deliver a cover of Metallica's "One" that somehow seems even darker and more oppressive than the original, this despite being a more elegant, spartan arrangement.

*"Session 13-1" is taken from the soundtrack to Shinji Aoyama's Eli, Eli Lema Sabachthani, about a future world that is reeling from a plague that makes all those who become infected with it lose all interest in life, and eventually commit suicide. There's no cure for it, but a pair of quasi-free-jazz musicians have found a way to minimize the effects through creating bizarre noise-pastiches that somehow mimmic the feeling of death within infected listeners. Much of the film's run time is spent watching these musicians at work building their songs, which can make for either a fascinating or deeply annoying viewing experience, dependant upon your interests and your temperment. It's not out on DVD domestically, but excellent subtitled copies can be obtained fairly readily through eBay.

LINKS:
Songs for Brian Evenson Mixtape
Brian Evenson's Official Website
Brian Evenson short stories online at Web del Sol
Brian Evenson's books on Amazon.com
Catharsis in Crisis by Old Time Relijun
Boy Child: The Best of Scott Walker 1967-1970 by Scott Walker
B-Sides & Rarities by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Halber Mensch by Einstürzende Neubauten
I'm Your Man by Leonard Cohen
Solid Gold by Gang of Four
Sings Greatest Palace Music by Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
Altmann's Tongue by Brian Evenson, Tamarin & Xingu Hill
Ab Ovo by Bruce Gilbert
Jesus Hits Like the Atom Bomb by Sterling Jubilee Singers
Blood Money by Tom Waits
Inquisition Symphony by Apocalyptica
This is What You Want... This is What You Get by Public Image, Ltd.
No More Shall We Part by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds