Philiac “This Appalling Ocean”

This record is quite a presentation—it’s clear vinyl, which I love, and the grooves are cut in such a way that when you look at it on the turntable it looks like it’s moving back and forth, rather than spinning. Pretty cool. The cover opens up to what’s mostly a fish and scale flavored abstract composition—though there’s a prominent clean, white skull of some kind. I’m not sure what. Someone who knows skulls would know right off. It almost looks like a cat—but I’m not going to think about that—for me, one of the great injustices of the world is that cats aren’t all immortal. Inside, the images are arranged in a loose collage on black: fish, a bird head, a hand, a snake, etc. It’s generally pretty creepy. You’ve gotta work to make out the credits and messages (aka song titles) rendered in barely legible liquid paper. As well as some scrawled credits. Some people want to see their name up in lights. But then some people would rather sneak in like with evidence of a crime. I definitely get that sentiment.

There’s some really heavy guitar and drums-based rock music (not heavy metal—though I don’t really know what heavy metal is, these days). The singer has a really low voice that sounds like it’s coming from the dungeon (but I don’t mean that death-metal kind of singing)—I can’t make out the lyrics (but then I’m never good a making out lyrics)—but then I don’t need the words for the mood—it’s definitely on the doomed side of the tracks—not a happy-go-lucky feeling, here. There are some other noises, too, synths maybe, that sound a little sci-fi and apocalyptic—which is nice. An extended instrumental part, now, is really reminding me of some of the prog-rock, I guess it was, I listened to as a lad—the early Genesis, and some German bands like Nektar. When the vocals return, though, it’s now bringing back Joy Division (must be somewhat of an influence) which also makes me happy (in an odd way)—I guess the most extreme versions of that stuff, back (was it really nearly half-a-century ago?) was like nothing else. There’s a repeated line I can make out, “I’m never going to see you again,” and I guess that gets right at a certain sentiment I’d rather not dwell on—but that’s followed by an instrumental part that recalls, for me, someone like Black Sabbath—I mean, just slightly, but that’s enough for me to escape into nostalgia.

2.6.24