You Never Got Me Right; Never Could Keep Me Down

Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignoneau - Lifewriter (2006) [movie]

Lifewriter translates typed text combinations into unique living organisms much like ribosomes translate mRNA into vitally diverse proteins. Or like neural systems translate sensory stimuli into unique thoughts that leap off our tongues and interact with their surroundings. Such a device visualizes a world where our efforts have real impact instead of the reality of being filed in static documents and forgotten in historical filing cabinents.

After working two unanticipated ten-hour-days on a salary, I wish my resolve would boom in the voice of Aretha Franklin or Mick Jagger. It instead spills out as drool on my pillow to a wafting Air lullabye fronted by a Joni Mitchell vulnerability and Casiotone self-consiousness. Sometimes my waking life feels like one of those psuedo-autobiographies by unmentioned ghostwriters with no meaningful interest in the story except pushing it towards comfortable pleasantries and linear structures.

Frida Hyvönen - You Never Got Me Right (mp3)

Frida funnels Joni Mitchell with two fists wrestling a Swedish Ouija board to spell "FUCK". This track is specifically confrontational, but most of the others lean towards the complexly emotional.

Jóhann Jóhannsson - Odi et Amo (mp3)

Jóhann's meditative avant garde casts the peace of Air in a bleak Icelandic minimalist twilight.

Over the Rhine - Flown Free (mp3)

Karin inspires me to retreat to a piano instead of a mattress, but doesn't offer the full-bodied strength to carry the instrument up four flights of stairs to my apartment. This song empowers with characteristic OtR honesty but also lends the support of an overdramatic choir chanting Amen.

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Lonesome NM Nights (mp3)

Owen Ashworth is trapped in a cold rigidity like baby Jessica McClure in a 1987 well, but his subtle screams of distress are never answered.