A book within a book, Hystopia is actually the novel left behind by Eugene Allen, a Vietnam vet from a slightly-alternate version of the 60s where John F. Kennedy survived Oswald’s assassination attempt and is serving his third term in office. Opened and closed by various notes and testimonies from friends and family members, Allen’s work makes up the majority of the novel, a narrative imagining characters from his time in Vietnam once they return home. The kicker, though, is that while they are back in the States, they never really ‘get home’, with the war following them back to a dystopian (but far from unrecognisable) America ravaged by biker gangs and forest fires.

In an attempt to solve the crisis of PTSD and violence, the government turn to an experimental psychiatric method called ‘enfolding’, where veterans reenact traumatic scenes while dosed up on a tranquilliser, Tripizoid. While even the doctors working on the project believe the technique to be without substance, it proves paradoxically effective for many subjects and blanks memories of combat. “Confusion is undoubtedly an element of the curative process,” writes Means. “In most cases the patient does forget about it, becoming fully immersed in the reenacted trauma’s nullification of the real trauma”.

Which isn’t to say it’s a silver bullet. Indeed the novel opens with a “failed enfold,” Rake, a man filled with the sort of all-consuming rage and propensity for violence unique to men forced into the sacrifices of war only to end up on the losing side. We find him with Allen’s sister, Meg (whom he has almost certainly kidnapped, and has undergone some degree of enfolding too), as they drive across Michigan on an anarchistic rampage of murder, drugs and destruction. Eventually, they reach the home of Hank, Rake’s former sidekick who has developed a love of trees since enfolding, a man who tries to protect Meg and figure out a way in which they can save themselves from Rake.

The second strand of the story deals with another enfold Singleton and his colleague Wendy, government officials breaking protocol to meet up and fall in love, who somehow end up on the trail of Rake, as though their rule bending was in fact a conspiracy on the part of their superiors to engineer the operation. Again though, confusion reigns, with Singleton’s boss admitting that a key part of being a commander is having the “gumption to go back and revise history”, talking of writing operation plans after the operation in order to ensure they are correct.

This sense of counter-history runs throughout the novel, from Singleton and Wendy’s quest and Hank’s transformation into peaceful nature-lover, right down to Eugene Allen’s re-telling (re-imagining?) of his sister’s story. What becomes important for these troubled people is not discerning the capital-T Truth but rather finding a variation they can believe in. More often than not, this involves a sense of mission, the victim’s need for order in the face of chaos, the desire for purpose or meaning in “an age when everything else seemed to be spinning deeper and deeper into despair,” anything which enables them to form a narrative of the world in a way they would like it to exist.

“It was crazy, he admitted, but it kept him going and like all good delusions it was fuelled by genuine hope and dedication to the truth”

And that’s what sets apart David Means’ Vietnam from that of the postmodern cannon. Yes, it is full of claims and counter-claims and impenetrable paranoia, but rather than using these to trace a descent into bewilderment, Hystopia utilises them to chart a way out. In a world where confusion and conflict constitute the resting face of the planet, maybe disinformation is needed not to obscure the truth but rather create it?

Here’s a playlist of songs that are suitable or relevant in one way or another, or maybe just capture the mood of certain characters and scenes.

Tracklisting:

1) Search and Destroy – The Stooges
2) IN EVIL HOUR – Battle Ave.
3) High & Wild – Angel Olsen
4) My War – Black Flag
5) Everything Falls Apart – Hüsker Dü
6) Saigon Shrunken Panorama – The Mountain Goats
7) Rugged Country – Japanese Breakfast
8) Meg – Hovvdy
9) Love, Come Save Me – Right Away, Great Captain!
10) I Need You To Tell Me Who I Am – John Moreland
11) Drugs To Make You Sober – Jeremiah Nelson
12) Are We Failing? – Hallelujah The Hills
13) Flaming Home – Mount Eerie with Julie Doiron and Frederick Squire
14) Lovers as Mirrors – Paper Bee
15) Forgetting is Believing – Nathaniel Rateliff
16) Redemption:1 (An Army Man And His Self-Discovery) – Justin Vernon

Hystopia is out now via Faber & Faber (UK) and Farrar, Straus and Giroux (US) and you can get it from most good bookshops. Check out the other works by David Means on his Goodreads page.

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But somehow, amidst the drugs and fighting and perversion, Pollock managed to create characters interesting beyond black curiosity, taking up the mantle of Southern greats such as William Gay and Flannery O’Connor in his ability to induce sympathy or at least complicate the antipathy his characters will garner. This style was developed (and potentially mastered) with Devil All The Time, his debut novel which cast the reader into world in which the membrane between reality and nightmare is leaky at best, with blood sacrifice and serial killer couples complicating an already bleak coming-of-age tale.

While Donald Ray Pollock’s latest novel, The Heavenly Table, takes us back to the 1917, it’s still rooted in the area of America he is making his own. The narrative is snappy and unsettled, the short chapters jumping between various locations and points of view, slowly drawing inwards in an inescapable ring which corrals the characters into the inevitable finale at the town of Meade. We have Ellsworth Fiddler, a swindled farmer trying to save face, Jasper Cone, a painfully afflicted sanitation inspector, Lieutenant Bovard, a jilted husband turned homoerotic (would be) war hero, and finally the luckless Jewett brothers, Cane, Cob and Chimney, who grow tired of the poor life and turn to robbing banks as a path to salvation.

With the graphic violence, crude sex and odd scatological humour, this appears to be more or less Pollock’s odd twist on the standard Western fare. Where things get interesting is that the Jewetts are inspired by a cheap dime novel, The Life and Times of Bloody Bill Bucket. Every cliche can therefore be read as a secondhand gesture, the Jewetts wearing Bloody Bill’s persona like a tacky fancy dress costume, hoping some of his magic (ie. his fictional bravado, success, imperiousness to pain/failure/death) might rub off on them. Furthermore, as their ‘spree’ gains traction so does the media’s reaction, with stories of ‘Jewett’ crimes emanating from newspapers in other areas and states, despite the brothers never having been there.

So not only are the boys distorting fiction into reality, but their reality is distorting into fiction, leaving them having to live up to the magnificent/terrifying tales on both ends. And while it’s apparent the trio are not well-equipped for such pressures, they sure give it their (quite literal) best shot, working on the logic of faking it ’til you make it:

‘Leaning over the horn of his saddle, Chimney spat and then said, “Well, I don’t know who those ol’ boys are back there, but I don’t figure they can shoot any better than we can.”

“Maybe, but there must be fifteen of them in that pack.”

“So?” Chimney said. “That many don’t even amount to one box of shells.”‘

Here are some dust-strewn, blood-spattered songs to listen to as you read.

Tracklisting:

1) Devil Town – Bright Eyes
2) Blood Red Sentimental Blues – Cotton Jones
3) Bury Me in the Garden – Tyler Butler and his Handsome Friends
4) Tom Justice, The Choir Boy Robber, Apprehended at Ace Hardware in Libertyville, IL – Casiotone For The Painfully Alone
5) Murderous Joy – Carter Tanton
6) Christ Jesus – Deer Tick
7) You Should’ve Seen the Other Guy – Nathaniel Rateliff
8) Buriedfed – Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson
9) Fire & Fast Bullets – Blitzen Trapper
10) Brother’s Blood – Kevin Devine
11) I Dreamt of My Brother Dying – Oscar Lush
12) Drunk and On a Star – Kevin Morby
13) Weather of a Killing Kind – The Tallest Man on Earth
14) Whore – Low
15) Liars – Gregory Alan Isakov and the Colorado Symphony
16) Closer to Heaven – Pink Mountaintops
17) Killer – Samantha Crain

The Heavenly Table is out now via Harvill Secker and Doubleday. You can read about Donald Ray Pollock’s other works on the Knopf Doubleday website.

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You have probably heard that Rateliff is back, not least because of his rather explosive performance of Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show, and this time he has company. It’s fair to say that Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats are not finger-picking folkers, but the raw energy of his solo work remains, as highlighted by album opener ‘I Need Never Get Old’. A good indicator of the shambling, soulful rock that The Night Sweats have brought to the table, the track is still recognisably Rateliff but with a showy, jubilant flourish. The track also serves as an introduction to the main theme of the record, a marriage of celebration and introspection, needles of regret poking through the haze of adrenaline and alcohol.

“I know that some will say it matters but little babe
Come on and mean it to me I need it so bad
Mean it to me I need it so bad.

I needed to try
Needed to fall
I needed your love I’m burning away
I need never get old”

‘Howling At Nothing’ sees the dial swing further toward soul, an impassioned, swaying tune for good times amongst bad days, where sincere, starlit promises spark into brilliant existence before fading with the dawn. As with much of the record the sense of embracing the moment is palpable, as if everyone involved understands that despite what might happen later, while sober and tired and desperate, every word he sings is heartfelt and genuine:

“Some were playing in a round
Some were dipping so low
It never seemed to matter as the night slipped away
Cause there was soul in the air”

That’s not to say, however, a party can drown out all of the darker thoughts. ‘Trying So Hard Not To Know’ speaks of the struggle to sell the idea of goodtimes-as-an-answer, Rateliff labouring to convince himself let alone anyone else (“You never stand up long enough to pull it together/ Well who gives a damn and very few can / When they’re trying so hard not to know”). ‘I’ve Been Failing’, with it’s finger-clicking and tinkling piano, sounds like the midnight confessions of a liquor-loosened tongue. “I’ve been failing you”, wails Rateliff, “but I can’t stop trying”, and you get the impression the trying and failing will continue for a good while yet.

With its blend of self-deprecation, defiance and cathartic yelling, ‘S.O.B’ is central to the album, the creed to the Night Sweats faith. Rising out of handclaps and wordless hums, the song finds Rateliff possessed with zeal, a pacing preacher electrified by the communal energy of his congregation:

“I’m gonna need someone to help me
I’m gonna need somebody’s hand
I’m gonna need someone to hold me down
I’m gonna need someone to care
I’m gonna writhe and shake my body
I’ll start pulling out my hair
I’m going to cover myself with the ashes of you and nobody’s gonna give a damn”

It’s as if his life depends on getting these words out, be it as a warning for others, a last plea for help or just a clearing of his head and mouth before the next big drink. Here Rateliff is caught between the very human (male?) solipsism, the star-of-a-movie-called-Me attitude of grand statements and gestures and (imaginary?) heroines waiting for rescue, and the depressive notion that the buck stops with him, that no-one else cares all that much, probably because they are all too busy in a spotlight of their own imagining. What’s more, Rateliff seems to understand his position without fully submitting to either side. Instead, he whips himself into a frenzy, rebuking himself while all the while hoping for an epiphany. Every so often he is tipped over the threshold, though whether into ecstasy or anguish it’s never quite clear.

“Son of a bitch
Give me a drink
Won’t more night
This can’t be me
Son of a bitch
If I can’t get clean
I’m gonna drink my life away”

A return to the regret-filled confessional style, ‘Wasting Time’ finds Rateliff musing on all the hours he has wasted “falling down” and “hiding under”, as well as the time lost “in constant reflection”. ‘Thank You’ is an apology to his loved one for this outlook (“Spend your years / Spend your time / With all these tears”), while ‘Look it Here’ is an attempted explanation, a cathartic admission of guilt which builds into frustrated yelling of simple truths: “I got a love so hard I can’t stand it / And with a heart so weak and abandoned”.

If this seems like the turning point before a Happy-Ever-After then don’t be fooled. ‘Shake’ is hot and humid, snaking like a low mist, the fever-dreams of a man pinning hope of reprieve on some erotic encounter, while ‘I’ll Be Waiting’ is based in reality, Rateliff alone and weary and still gripped by the need for love (“I’m tired and worn / But I’m still standing / I’ll be waiting ah baby just to dance with you”). Closing track ‘Mellow Out’ finds him pocketing advice you feel he could never follow, and, be it his honesty or bravado or both, you can’t help but not hold it against him.

“Someone came in rushing dragging feet and nails and I could pretend
Wanting more of nothing, feel it wearing on me
Just keep it hid

Mellow out, and find a better way you’re feeling it shut down
Take it easy baby, maybe find some time to just calm down
Keep on telling me”

Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats could be your favourite anti-heroes of the sixties, the forgotten friend of Otis Redding and Sam & Dave, or maybe from even further back, a band of villains rolling into nameless pre-war towns to cause shitstorms in cowboy brawl-bars and put smiles faces for one night only. That there is a serious side is less a surprise than a foregone conclusion, because no man has conjured this kind of bone-level fervour out of a pleasant existence. No, here are people staring down the barrel, people stranded in a sea of beer, locked inside some breakneck motion in which a grin and a grimace are practically indistinguishable. Whether this is a defiant two fingers or last hurrah seems unclear even to Rateliff, himself too caught up in a compulsion to dance and scream and shout. Whatever you take from this record, one thing is clear: They can’t put you in the ground if you’re still moving. 

Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats is out on the 21st of August via Stax / Caroline, and you can buy it here.

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“mid-barroom, drunk-but-honest proclamations when compared to [his solo work]… challenging whatever fear or sadness or regret is lurking in the dark corners of the world with a clear-eyed, defiant joy”

I’m not 100% sure of the exact details but it seems Howling At Nothing only got a European (UK?) release, and Rateliff has gone ahead and put a whole self-titled album together instead. Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats doesn’t drop until next week but they have released a few videos to rope you in. Watch below, and witness the miracle of live-show energy being caught on record.

The album will be released on the 21st August via Stax / Caroline. Stay tuned for a full review.
P.S. The band will be heading out on tour this autumn:
September 30th – Bristol – The Fleece
October 1st – Glasgow – Stereo
October 2nd – Leeds – Belgrave Music Hall
October 16th – Brighton – Patterns
October 19th – London – Village Underground
October 20th – Manchester – The Ruby Lounge
October 21st – Dublin – The Workman’s Club

Photograph by Malia James

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The May Roundup mix below contains a track from every artist we featured during the month (apart from Sharon van Etten and Noah Gundersen, sorry!), so plug your headphones in and enjoy some new music. Click the artists’ names in the tracklisting below to be taken to the post in question.

Tracklisting:

1. No More Sad Songs – Elvis Depressedly
2. Catchyalater – Frog
3. The Day Draws Near – The Washboard Abs
4. Every House is On Fire – Island Eyes
5. Forever – Boosegumps
6. Open Casket Hidden Meaning – Molly Drag
7. The Arp – Aidan Knight
8. Atheist Money – Adam Stafford
9. Lynx – The Tarantula Waltz
10. Milo – Young Jesus
11. Slow Dark Water – Furnsss
12. Aubrey – Debris Slide
13. Foreign Hands – Aisha Badru
14. I Need Never Get Old – Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats
15. Outside the Pale – Samantha Crain
16. Home – The Modern Folk
17. Staggers and Rise – Small Houses
18. Yannina – Jake Houlsby
19. To the Black Horizon – Mark Timmins
20. Heart – Bobby’s Oar
21. Bling – Bells Atlas
22. And You Meant the Sea – Ruth & Trudy
23. Party – Lake Michigan
24. Growing Leaves – Gay Angel
25. On and On – Zee Town and the Dog Boys
26. Travel Map – Hip Hatchet
27. Zoa – Batte Ave.
28. The Bird – Kathryn Joseph
29. …Until They’re Called – Old Earth

May 2015 Roundup from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

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Well good news! We have something more concrete. Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats have announced their début EP, Howling At Nothing, will be released on the 29th June on Stax/Caroline International. Until then, you will have to make do with the first single, ‘I Need Never Get Old’, below:

The new material continues with the jaunty, boisterous vibes that set apart Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats from his solo work, sounding like mid-barroom, drunk-but-honest proclamations when compared to the restrained (albeit passionate) confessions of In Memory of Loss and Falling Faster Than You Can Run. Significantly though, Rateliff does not throw away serious considerations with this upbeat project but instead faces them head on, challenging whatever fear or sadness or regret is lurking in the dark corners of the world with a clear-eyed, defiant joy.

Hopefully this is just a taster for a full record at some point in the no-too-distant future. We’ll let you know of any details on pre-ordering the EP as and when we get them.

The post Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats Announce EP appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklist:

1. Something About Us (Daft Punk cover) – Spazzkid
2. Waves and Waves and Waves (Playlounge cover) – Two White Cranes
3. Dogmas (Kississippi cover) – Cyberbully Mom Club
4. Call Me Maybe (Carly Rae Jepsen cover) – The Yellow Dress
5. Clouds (One Direction cover) – Shunkan
6. Lodi (Creedence Clearwater Revival cover) – Advance Base
7. Emma’s House (The Field Mice cover) – Lost Film
8. Pitseleh (Elliott Smith cover) – Marissa Nadler
9. Pink Rabbits (The National cover) – Matt Paxton
10. Ontario Gothic (Foxes in Fiction cover) – Julia Brown
11. Australia (Attic Abasement cover) – R.L. Kelly
12. Sister of the Moon (Fleetwood Mac cover) – Globelamp
13. I’m On Fire (Bruce Springsteen cover) – Wakes
14. When the Sun Hits (Slowdive cover) – Mao Ra Sun (Feat Dems)
15. Tomorrow is a Long Time (Bob Dylan cover) – Phosphorescent
16. Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana cover) – Noah Gundersen
17. The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton (The Mountain Goats cover) – Nathaniel Rateliff
18. Museum of Flight (Damien Jurado cover) – Winterpills

Covers Mix Volume #13 from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

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Aisha Burns

Violinist, singer-songwriter and member of instrumental outfit Balmorhea, Aisha Burns is multi-talented. She has recently released her debut full length album, Life In The Midwater, on Western Vinyl. It is a dark and brooding album, capped off with Burns’s superb vocals. Listen to my current favourite track, ‘Requiem’, burn with restrained intensity in the player below.

Dave Van Ronk

Dave Van Ronk was a folk artist who died back in 2002. A leading figure in the Greenich Village music scene, he gave help and advice to many upcoming folk acts, including a young Bob Dylan. Van Ronk is about to re-enter the limelight as the Coen brothers have made a film (the upcoming, Inside Llewyn Davis) based on his autobiography. To coincide with this, the ever brilliant Smithsonian Folkways are releasing Down In Washington Square: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection, a 3CD collection of recordings, from early live performances in 1958, to his final studio sessions in 2001, shortly before his death. The film contains Van Ronk’s version of the track ‘Fare Thee Well (Dink’s Song)’, which is included on the set and available now as a digital download from the Smithsonian Folkways website.

Inlet Sound

Canadian band Inlet Sound recently performed a lovely rendition of ‘Fake Empire’ for Southern Souls. The band have also graced the site before, with this session last year. If you like what you hear the band’s debut album, The Romantics, was released last year.

If you don’t regularly check up on what the good folks at Southern Souls are doing you really are missing out.

The River Has Many Voices

The River Has Many Voices (aka Matthew Payne) released his latest album, Division, back in June. It is an introspective album, six romantic country songs full of sorrow and yearning. It’s really pretty and really, really good and amazingly, available as a free download over at the band’s Bandcamp page. I highly recommend you give it a try.

Sam Moss

Sam Moss is back with a new single ahead of the release of his new record, No Kingdom, later in October.  ‘Hammer’ is a taste of what the Vermont based songwriter has to offer, and you can also get ‘Ocean’ from October’s edition of Textura. The album is shaping up to be a special one and we will write a full review in the next few weeks.

Nathaniel Rateliff

Nathaniel Rateliff is back with a new album, Falling Faster Than You Can Run, which is available to buy now. Those familiar with Rateliff’s previous album will be delighted to hear this follows the same recipe, stirring folk songs that seem to grant the same importance to the silence between words and notes as they do to the words and notes themselves. We aren’t quite there yet but this is sounding like the perfect winter album, contemplative with moments of fury, elemental outpourings of emotion.

Noah Gundersen

We’ll leave you with a promo for a new Noah Gundersen album that is due out early next year.

See you next month!

P.S. As ever, a stellar collection of Soundcloud picks were posted last week. Check out Head In The Clouds here.

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