Nova Ahead 1

Nova Ahead / Issue 1

My first car cd player was in a Nissan Pathfinder that I bought from some dingdongs in Swanzey, and you had to load the five discs in the trunk. It was with me for a short time before crumbling along with most of the other things in my life at that time, but boy did I love being able to play cds in the car. Up until that point I had mostly driven Buicks, the last few with tapedecks, providing endless opportunities to collage specific soundtracks to any number of driving scenarios. I do miss that, and I get that playlists and even burning a mix cd are still viable options to achieve this goal, but the work you put into a tape gives it a wholly different weight, and that gravity colors the songs and the arrangement thereof. Now I still have a cd player in my vehicle, and it still seems cool and futuristic to me, and vastly more convenient than duct-taping a boombox to the dashboard, which was a thing that I have had to do (but also now that I think of it, that was pretty great also, though I certainly don’t miss having to constantly buy D batteries). I especially like mixes because, if you make enough of them, you forget what song is coming next, and there is always some little surprise. An album is sort of on the opposite end of that spectrum; it is, much like a mix, a thoughtfully constructed timepiece that brings the listener on a dynamic journey, however it also is meant to become familiar, to be learned, maybe even etched into your heart. Music is another language, so if an album is a narrative or collection of feelings, it’s often only the composer that understands it fully; the magical part of the whole interchange is that the listener is invited into the equation, and to assign to the work a potentially, wholly new meaning, that will often never be communicated to the composer. That is quite the thing. 

Since the start of the pandemic, one of the albums I have had in my player has been Pile’s Green and Grey, a robust culmination of the work that Rick Maguire and company have been pouring into the band since its inception. It is a deftly iced cake, one that might inspire curiosity: is this even a real cake? Once you cut in, the layers are crisp and clear with excellent separation, while also providing a logical and extraordinary flavor profile. Take a bite and it’s inarguably delicious, but the more that you eat, the more illuminated the various tastes and textures become; as you can see, I’m coping through baking nowadays. This album has been on a pretty constant rotation since March, and being familiar with their past efforts, I am confident that it is the most fully realized Pile that has existed. A couple of years ago, I found myself at a Canadian Burger King during a solar eclipse, sitting with Rick and Fuchsia, possibly talking about weaving musical themes throughout an album. I say possibly only because I don’t have a way of knowing specific details about these conversations; my memory, I have found, is hit or miss. I wouldn’t say that it’s unreliable, but a lot of things that I know happened, conversations, connections, sort of float around, and while I do keep quite a lot straight up there, some things are mutable. The weather, sequence of events, the setting of a conversation, all shift when I’m trying to come up with concrete details. So, for instance, I was in Canada, at a Burger King, during an eclipse, with Rick and Fuchsia; but were we having this conversation? I am not sure (incidentally, Fuchsia will know exactly what we were talking about because she has a superhuman memory). Did we talk about that at some point, absolutely; also now I’m thinking that it may have between episodes of Seinfeld; or at a rest stop; or a traffic light; the bowling alley. One thing that can really help you to permanently affix memories in their right places is to remember the music of that moment. For this Pile album, since I have listened to it probably a hundred or so times in the last 8 months, there are a lot of things to choose from. One that is especially illuminated is a time I was on an old dirt road around the backside of Monadnock; it felt like the album was winding through the overgrown trees around me, moving carefully but with confidence from the canopy to the forest floor, while also laying gently on my chest. At moments I could feel its warm animal heart beating against me, and then it would burst from the trees and fill the surrounding air and sky with color, going from coos to shouting insistence in a tumbling, loving line; one you could see stretched out in front of you, but still felt surprising like the warm sun in November. That day in particular, these songs bloomed against me and filled my heart. 

Next up at Nova:

11/13 - Five Elizabeths, a short film by Jasmine Dreame Wagner, who literally can do every single thing. She writes amazing music and poetry, and makes movies too; we hung out in the river, ate pizza, and hung out with a buddy who worked at Vice, and at a certain point, that was a number of my pals, so I cannot for the life of me remember who it was. This is in conjunction with the Monadnock International Film Festival, and will feature a Q & A with Jasmine as well.

11/14 - Senie Hunt is playing at the space, but that sunuva gun is sold out.

11/16 - Rick from Pile doing a livestream set from our stage. Links forthcoming; don’t miss it.