Blues Folk to Pull at Your Steel String Heart Strings: Timber Timbre’s album “Medicinals”

“Oh the mountain top

Oh the visions stop

And I will reap the locust crop

‘cus I love you like a mountain Oh the mountain top

Oh the bleedings stopped

And down goes the hatchet on the chopping block

‘cus I love you like a mountain”

- Like A Mountain, Medicinals, Timber Timbre

Medicinals by Timber Timbre is a stunning example of largely unrecognized musical talent. This sensational folk and blues record is characterized by its twisted sounding progressions and macabre lyrical insight’s.

Its simple lyrics are spattered with typical Christian concepts of Devils and Locusts. It’s instrumentation is largely traditional folk, like the guitar and violin, but is combined with atypical sounds, like the crackling of a needle on vinyl, or the sound of a rusty spinning bike wheel.

Though not all songs have an entirely minor appeal, they all sound in some way corrupted, and none of them may be categorized as upbeat. This album is best described as an echoing nightmare of a disturbed blues legend, or an ephemeral wisp of evil. It must be understood, though, that despite this, it is a work of musical genius.

The song Like A Mountain is particularly incredible. Although the lyrics are vague one could posit they elude to the Old Testament stories of Abraham’s near sacrifice of his only son, or even Moses’ journey up mount Sinai. Its rich symbolism adds a refreshing flare of intellect into the desperate froth of today’s music.

There is an ultimately heart wrenching deformity captured in the demonic melodies and broken vocals displayed by the album Medicinals by Timber Timbre. It captures the sort of fleeting despair of a man who has buried his heart at the crossroads. It encapsulates a drowning sensation of folk morbidity.

Stud Your Own Leather Jackets!

Fashion is proven to be cyclical as each season  styles are adapted to certain eras. Now that winter is on its way, Montrealer’s seek refuge from the brisk cold winds in their wool pullovers ranging in dark colours schemes.  Now this is fairly typical and expected seeing as winter is cold as heck up here in Canada; but as the seasons transition so does Montreal’s street style  and good ol’ punk rock has put its foot in our doorway.

Honestly I’m ecstatic for this new trend for I can now finally wear my ratty and tattered clothes and not look like such a bum; but what catches my eye and annoys me beyond belief are pre-studded leather jackets! When I come across a girl with a brand new leather jacket and I can see that she has put no effort into adding those two inch spikes on her shoulders I want to scream.

Please excuse my bluntness and my extreme opinions regarding this topic but coming from a punk enthusiast’s standpoint; these pre-studded leather jackets take away from all that is punk rock and lacks one major component to the scene: AUTHENTICITY!

A true punk jacket should be bought second hand from the depths of some smelly discount store and should take at least two months of serious searching to find. Once the jacket is found, the owner should look through all their old band tees to see which ones they can cut up and make into patches. Afterwards they should save their spare pocket change until they can afford to buy a handful of studs. The jacket owner should then spend hours toiling over the thick hide of their jacket getting blisters on their fingers from trying to pierce through the material; and only then, will they have a jacket to call their own!

I know this may sound like some recipe for a DIY leather jacket and it may come off as commanding (which is hypocritical and not punk in the slightest) but it’s important to understand the necessity of this process. A punk leather jacket is a continuous process that eventually becomes your second skin. You need to put in the effort to make it your own so that you appreciate that garment that covers your back.

If you don’t follow this process or a similar one; you take that edgy look for granted and as the seasons change that pre-studded leather jacket will find itself in the back of your closet next to your UGG boots, “nerd” glasses, and pink Juicy Couture velour sweat pants.

Neil Gaiman’s “Endless Nights” comic review

‘On Desire, Happiness, and Love’

 Neil Gaiman’s Endless Nights is a refreshing side note to the famous Sandman series. It follows God-like characters, called the endless, in a procession of 7 unrelated tales. The most enthralling of these tales is the second comic merely entitled Desire. In this comic Gaiman illustrates the role of desire in human experience by unveiling a tragic glimpse into the romance of two young people in pre-Roman Britain.

The principal character is a young girl named Kara, who is infatuated with a beautiful young boy named Danyal. It so happens that one day Danyal goes on a hunting trip in the woods while his father, the tribal chief, goes to negotiate with other bands in the area. The negotiations end with the murder of Danyal’s father.

When word reaches the town Kara decides to set out and bring the news to Danyal. She tracks his path through the woods but she loses direction. She soon finds herself standing in front of an androgynous character of sublime beauty who reveals ‘himself’ to be Desire. Desire shows Kara how to make Danyal love her.

Kara finds Danyal and delivers him the bad news. On the journey back to the village Danyal begins to profess his love for her, but she responds by denying him. His advances become clearer and more desperate as the journey continues, culminating in a proposal for marriage, which she eventually accepts. When they return to their village they live in happiness for a short time.

One day when Danyal is out hunting a group of strange men enter the town.  They want to rape Kara and steal the village’s riches. They show Kara the head of her husband and laugh. But she pits the men against each other by twisting their desires for her, and has each one of them killed. The final page of the comic shows Kara’s portrait as she crumbles from youth into dust, and laments the terrible life she has led.

 When writing on matters of love Neil Gaimen has the tendency to cause the reader to actually love his characters. He accomplishes this because he has an almost inhuman ability to give a multidimensional personality to a fictional character. Moreover, his characters are relatable and typically admirable. He, however, also has no problem with ruining the character’s lives using tragedy that can only be compared to ancient Greek myth.

The result is most often a work of stunning emotional genius and relative philosophical insight. The moral of this particular story is that the pursuit of ones desires is not necessarily a road to happiness. It reminds me of his work Dream Country (Sandman Volume 3) where he writes, “the price of getting what you want, is getting what you once wanted”.

The insight that Neil Gaiman lends to the human experience through the medium of comics is extremely valuable. If there were ever a comic book that justified the classification of comics as an art form it would be Endless Nights.