There’s been tremendous buzz around director David Fincher‘s interpretation of the novel Girl With the Dragon Tattoo — the beach book to end all beach books. By now, anyone with a pulse knows that Fincher’s film follows a Swedish movie that received high marks from critics and audiences. Having just seen the American translation, I can say outright that it tops the Swedish version, and also manages to improve on Stieg Larsson‘s original novel in a number of ways.

Larsson didn’t exactly do filmmakers any favors with his clunky and overly-descriptive yarn. In between lengthy inventories of what characters had for lunch (usually any combination of Aquavit, small sandwiches, coffee and something called Billy’s Pan Pizza), the author delivered unflinching observations of murder and degradation, particularly those acts committed against females. His real contribution to literature, however, is the introduction of an indelible character named Lisbeth Salander — a petite and ferocious young woman who has been chewed up and spat out by institutions ostensibly there to protect people like her. The novel strongly suggests that Salander may be a high-functioning autistic, which may make her the first officially Aspergian detective hero (though I’ve long suspected Sherlock Holmes). In Lisbeth, Larsson created a character both irresistible and off-putting, characteristics that would be difficult for any actress to evoke — particularly when said heroine doesn’t do a lot of talking.

Noomi Rapace played Salander in the Swedish film, and did a fine job of it. Still, Rapace’s portrayal made Lisbeth’s behavior seem like a choice, rather than the product of systematic mistreatment, an iron will or neurological wiring. She was also likely a bit too old for the part. Numerous characters in the novel are continuously surprised — often at their own peril — to discover that this antisocial creature who is often mistaken for a young teen is such a dynamo. Rooney Mara, on the other hand, captures every nuance of this hard-to-pin-down character — from autistic inwardness to intellectual curiosity to explosive rage.

It helps that Mara is physically closer to the Salander in the book, painfully thin and angular, with features that nevertheless could be seen as attractive if not for the deliberate attempts to obscure them with body mortification and a yanked-up hoodie. Credit must be given to whoever designed her wardrobe, which improves greatly on the dated techno-nihilist look of the Swedish film. Fincher and Co. must have spent some time observing pissy crustpunks and misanthropic hackers in real life. (Insert OWS joke here.)

What Mara really brings to the role is ice-cold detachment and a palpable lust for information, especially that transmitted through electronic devices. With precision comportment and a credible Swedish accent, Mara embodies Lisbeth Salander on a cellular level. Whether she’s piecing together clues at superhuman speed, enacting rough justice upon an abuser, or engaging in rapacious lovemaking, this Lisbeth is a force to be reckoned with. I’m still somewhat in awe that a relatively unknown actress could pull off such an arresting performance.

Fincher’s filmmaking style is perfect for at least the first tale in Larsson’s trilogy. The mood is chilly and pensive throughout, and mostly manages to avoid the book’s narrative stumbling blocks. I’m not sure what kind of impression will be generated in viewers who haven’t read the novel, but I’m guessing there’s enough intrigue to entertain. Fincher manages to thread the book’s numerous characters and subplots together in a way that Larsson would have done well to take note of, were he alive to see it.

Daniel Craig is also fantastic. His Mikael Blomkvist is a huge improvement over the Swedish actor, and definitely more likable than the character in the book. (It’s pretty clear that Larsson was writing the fantasy version of himself — a heroic whistleblowing reporter who is, despite advancing middle age, irresistible to women of every conceivable variety.) But it’s not Daniel Craig’s movie. It’s Rooney Mara’s, and she positively owns it. It’s also nice to see Robin Wright as Erica Berger, Blomkvist’s partner at Millennium Magazine (and in the sack). She, too, is leaps and bounds above her predecessor.

If you even marginally liked the book, I expect you’ll really dig the movie. If you’re one of those people who rolls their eyes at American “remakes” of foreign films, get over it. Fincher’s Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is simply superior.

In fact, I look forward to seeing it again this weekend.

Only now, at the ripe age of 37, am I experiencing the fusion of progressive rock and metal in a way that makes sense for me. Although there is currently a slew of bands mining the intersection of complexity and heaviosity, there are two groups that embody the best of this integration: Opeth and Mastodon.

Both bands have new albums out (actually, Opeth’s record was released yesterday; Mastodon’s drops next week), and both have stirred up controversy among their core audiences for moving away from their metallic roots. NPR (!!!) is hosting a full-length stream of Opeth’s Heritage; Mastodon’s The Hunter can be heard in its entirety at their YouTube channel.

Analyzing a band’s motivations is a favorite pastime for music obsessives, but it is ultimately a pointless endeavor. Especially in this case, as both groups have telegraphed their stylistic shifts over previous releases.

For those not familiar with either act, here’s a bit of background.

Opeth is a Swedish band that came out of that country’s technical death metal scene. Early on, they distinguished themselves from their peers by combining the pagan mood of black metal with the more chops-oriented death style. Throw in the occasional acoustic guitar and vocals that alternate between growl and croon, and you have something approaching original. Over the years, Opeth adopted an even more progressive stance, becoming increasingly sophisticated in arrangement and execution. By the time Blackwater Park was released in 2001, the band had become a juggernaut, with a devoted international fanbase. Fast-forward to 2011 and the release of Heritage — an album that loses nearly all of the metal trappings, instead fully embracing a 1970s progressive rock aesthetic. Message boards are lighting up with comments from heshers who think the band sold out, wussed out or both. Actually, they simply became more themselves.

Mastodon sprouted from entirely different soil. Heavy-drinking, hard-drugging miscreants from Atlanta, Georgia, the band was originally as much a part of the hardcore scene as the metal community. Like their sludgy forbears Neurosis, Mastodon trafficked in crushing riffs peppered with fuck-all attitude. If you’ve spent any time in the hardcore trenches, you know the type: dirty black Carharts, full-sleeve tattoos and a kind of freewheeling nihilism. What made these guys stand out was their combination of go-for-the-throat aggression and enlightened musicality. It wasn’t long before they began incorporating elements of other styles, namely progressive rock. Their last album, Crack the Skye, is likely the high water mark of their prog odyssey, but The Hunter brings even more melody to the fore. Some of the songs even utilize — gasp! — major keys.

I could probably spend another couple thousand words describing why these bands’ latest records are worth your consideration. But what I really want to get across is that there are still acts that are willing to defy fan expectation while producing music that is ostensibly for a commercial marketplace. These aren’t avant-garde bands. They aren’t hipster noise. They aren’t irreconcilably retro (although both make fine use of older styles). They will never be featured in prime time TV shows or car commercials. Yet both records will sell, and concerts will be packed. I’d like to think it’s because the music is actually interesting.

If I were just starting out as a musician, I’d be incredibly inspired by Opeth and Mastodon. Hell, I am now. I’m not sure that Lux Eterna Records will be releasing any comparable records anytime soon, but I’d like to think that we share a commitment to musical exploration and sonic quality. That and a killer ’70s prog collection.

There’s an interesting article in today’s New York Times about organizations that pay people to write positive online reviews, as well as the groups that are trying to figure out a way to keep these fake reviews from flooding internet retail and advisory sites.

Increasingly, companies are relying on customer reviews from sites like Yelp, Amazon and TripAdvisor to sell their products or attract visitors to their establishments. No surprise, then, that a business of “fake” endorsements would spring up. Now, the web is cluttered with reviews that, though written by real people, are not genuine in their support or are composed by friends, family or those who have been paid to write them. Often, these reviewers have never even read the book or visited the hotel in question.

The NYT piece is worth reading, as it talks about what’s being done to counteract this trend. But even if we do figure out a way to stem the tide of fake reviews, it would do nothing to prevent bias or inaccuracies in personal reviews. Like many librarians who work in collection development, I frequently look at the review breakdown of books on Amazon before deciding on what to order. Working in a small library with a limited acquisitions budget, we have to choose carefully what titles we purchase. And, while we try to focus on what people want to read, as opposed to focusing only on quality books, we are of course affected by reviews, both critical and personal. In fact, I often look more carefully at negative (1- and 2-star) reviews to see why people did not enjoy a particular book.

Although negative reviews are more often written by “real” people, that doesn’t mean they are better. As anyone who reads Amazon customer reviews knows, many of the negative posts are reactions to either the price of the Kindle edition or broad objections to the content. It must be very frustrating for an author to see many negative reviews of his or her work based solely on the price assigned to the electronic version by a company with which they have no direct involvement. The problem of objecting to content is equally frustrating: any book on politics, for example, will feature scads of negative reviews from those with opposing ideologies. It’s safe to say that very few of those reviewers have given the title an honest, objective read. Another example is teen literature, where books that have any content that parents could possibly object to — basically any book ever written for a teen audience — are reviewed as trash or even pornography. I came across a good example at work this week: one reviewer of the teen fantasy novel Once a Witch, by Carolyn MacCullough, a book which is, by all reports, far tamer than many other similar titles, spoke of “nasty garbage and filth” because the teenage character drinks, smokes and there is a mention at one point of a condom.

It is easy to object to a review like this, because it reflects an attitude that is out of touch, old-fashioned or ignorant. Yet as a librarian, I must be aware of and sensitive to the many opinions that differ from my own. The fact is that many parents would likely agree with the reviewer.

One benefit of a review like this is that I can read it, decide that most teens are already aware of cigarettes and condoms, check the responses to the negative review, and make my own decision about purchasing or reading the book. At the same time, a parent who may object to the depiction of teen drinking or smoking, or who may think that the word “condom” is what makes teens want to have sex, can find out that these things are included in the book, and avoid that title for their kids. While I may disagree with this decision for many reasons (the kid will still find the book if she wants it, the arguments are unrealistic, etc.), I as a librarian need to at least pretend to respect the parent’s decision.

What do you think, friends? How reliant are you on online reviews? Are you scared off by negative reviews? Do you think you can tell a real review from a fake review? Do you write fake reviews? Tell us!

Sick with the flu. A really bad bug. Managed to make it out of the house yesterday, though, as there was an errand that absolutely had to be run. As a reward for putting up with the obnoxiousness that is gift-season retail, my better half and I went to the movies for some uplifting holiday fare: Black Swan.

We are mostly Darren Aronofsky enthusiasts here at Contrarian HQ, and the chance to see what happens when the notoriously tough director puts the screws to the vapid Natalie Portman was too good to pass up. At my recollection, Portman hasn’t acted in a film since 1996. She has appeared in quite a few movies, however.

Now, I have nothing against Portman as a human being, and, like many fellas, have even gone through a “she’s kinda cute” phase. Which wore off after seeing her consistent inability to deliver lines like “good morning” with anything approaching authenticity. We heard that this was the role of her lifetime, though, and the word “Oscar” — which is rarely used in conjunction with “Natalie Portman” — has even been invoked.

Also, there are ballerinas.

Black Swan is, at its heart, a psychological horror film — equal parts Polanski, Cronenberg and De Palma. Specifically, The Tenant, Dead Ringers and Carrie. It’s cruel, pervy and studiously misogynistic like Polanski, splattered with gross-out body dysmorphia a la Cronenberg, and taut with dread, like the best of De Palma. If that doesn’t get America rushing to the theaters, I don’t know what will. (Certainly not that DOA Depp/Jolie vehicle.)

Aronofsky is not a subtle director. In fact, it’s taken me a while to come around to his style, which can be mopey and oppressive. I don’t think there will ever be a point in my life where I will willfully subject myself to another viewing of Requiem for a Dream. I still have those Kronos Quartet cello stabs lodged in my frontal lobe. I remember liking π (the drum-and-bass soundtrack was very cool for the 1990s), and more recently enjoyed The Wrestler, along with the rest of humanity. The Fountain was beautifully flawed and emotionally provocative, regardless of Hugh Jackman. So I was totally down for a classic ballerina-goes-insane story.

Viewed in a certain light, Black Swan is about the quest for artistic perfection and the physical and psychological costs of achieving it. Like The Wrestler, it shows both the grace and agony of a particular athletic discipline, in this case, ballet. Not for the squeamish, Black Swan features scene after scene of damaged dancer physiques, from smashed toenails to self-inflicted malnourishment. Yet it also reveals the beauty of dance and the power of classical composition. The story essentially mirrors Swan Lake, but to say any more would spoil the heavy-handed metaphor, around which Aronofsky somehow manages to construct a thrilling movie.

The incredible cinematography and powerful performances certainly help, as do the meticulous editing and sound design. Portman is every bit as good as the hype. Actually, she’s better than the hype. She transcends any pretense to “acting” by wholly becoming her character — the lithe, lovely and emotionally impaired Nina. Some of what she does could be termed “method,” such as losing a bit too much weight and possibly not getting enough sleep. But unlike, say, Christian Bale, who does this stuff like some kind of circus trick, Portman completely inhabits her damaged dancer. In this way, her performance is closer to Robert De Niro‘s portrayal of on-the-ropes boxer Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull.

Black Swan is no doubt Portman’s movie, and she earns it frame by frame. The supporting cast is equally riveting, particularly Mila Kunis, who has come a loooong way from her squeaky start on “That ’70s Show.” Her turn as a free ‘n’ easy West Coast dancer new to the Big Apple serves as the perfect foil to Portman’s pristine Nina. And what would an Aronofsky film be without a creepy, overbearing mother figure? This time the role goes to the underused Barbara Hershey (I guess her stock dropped in Hollywood after playing Mary Magdalene in The Last Temptation of Christ.)

We also get some amazing glimpses of Winona Ryder as an aged-out ballerina charting her own path to ruination. Through her role, as well as Portman’s, we see the dancers as thoroughbred horses, with a very finite amount of time to express their sole reason for existing. Let’s just say that ending up in dog food is probably a better fate than what befalls Ryder’s character.

Half the “fun” of the movie is watching Nina go nutso. Aronofsky serves up grim voyeurism as Portman begins to merge with her metaphorical “twin,” whose characteristics she is simultaneously drawn towards and repulsed by. I found myself rooting for Nina throughout, but nevertheless reveling as she comes undone.

Leaving the theater, I decided to see if I couldn’t get a new turn-of-phrase into circulation in tribute to Portman’s performance. I call it “dancing the black swan.” You know, for when someone goes a little bit around the bend for one reason or another — unemployment, divorce, a death in the family, etc. Here’s a sample conversation in which one could use the phrase:

“How ya been, Dave?”

“Well, pretty good at the moment, but I was dancing the black swan for a little while there after I got my walking papers from the factory. Things are OK now, though.”

Please feel free to use it!

The Lindqvist novel is pretty long, so a lot of compelling characters and narrative arcs never made the movie. One such plotline concerns the true nature of Eli’s guardian, Hakan. (I won’t spoil it for you, in case you plan to read the book, which I highly recommend.)

When I heard about an American remake, my heart sank. Why aren’t these exemplary European movies good enough for the U.S. market? Do we always have to ruin them with our hamfisted cinematography and on-the-nose scripts? (David Fincher‘s upcoming remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo may be an exception.)

Worse still, they changed the name from the enigmatic and evocative Let the Right One In to the more mundane Let Me In (I’ve argued with people about which is the more accurate translation, and my best Swedes tell me it’s the former.)

I wasn’t as bothered by the choice of director, Matt Reeves. Cloverfield was decent pop trash, and from what I’d heard, Reeves is a fan of both Lindqvist’s novel and the Swedish movie. He hasn’t directed much else (does “Felicity” count?), but he clearly wants to make his mark with something. Could it be a sweet-sad-sinister vampire love story from Europe?

I had my doubts.

After reading a glowing New York Times review (and several others), however, I concluded that Let Me In probably didn’t suck. So the missus and I went to see it last night in a theater quarter-full of obnoxious Americans who probably thought they were in for a pederast version of “True Blood.”

The casting was solid. It’s impossible to find an Oscar (now Owen) as sad and lost looking as the kid in the Swedish flick, and it’s even harder to find an Eli (now Abby) who puts across the appropriate mix of eerie beauty and repulsiveness. Keep in mind they need to be child actors! Chloë Grace Moretz (Hit Girl from the odious Kick Ass) is quite good, but a smidge too sweet in the sweet parts and not quite vile enough in vamp mode. Still, I can’t think of any young U.S. actress that could have made it work so well.

Kodi Smit-McPhee plays Owen, giving his gawky pathos a uniquely American twist. (McPhee was last seen in the adaptation of Cormac McCarthy‘s The Road — he’s clearly cornered the market for depressing kids’ roles.) Large-eyed and rail-thin, the young actor is a choice vehicle for the character’s defiant piteousness.

Set in a grim and frostbitten Los Alamos New Mexico in 1983, Let Me In proceeds at a down tempo, allowing Reeves to transcend (and in parts improve) upon the gorgeous cinematography of the original. This also lets perennially underappreciated character actor Elias Koteas — who plays a forlorn cop on the hunt for a nonexistent Satanic cult — ooze in and out of scenes like spoiled convenience store creamer.

The great Richard Jenkins (papa Nathaniel from “Six Feet Under”) plays the guardian, and it’s nice to see a bit more development of that character. It’s still nothing like the book, though trust me.

Reeves did a killer job capturing the crippling ennui of Reagan’s America (to all of you Gipper apologists: I lived there, and it was all the more bleak for the relentless jingoism). No matter how many times you spun “Let’s Dance,” 1983 was not a cheerful year. Are vampires really any more frightening than bullies, divorce, latchkeys and Cold War propaganda? Owen doesn’t think so, and neither do I.

There are scary scenes, for sure — perhaps scarier than the Swedish film, which was more unsettling than frightening. If I had to choose, I prefer the stark beauty of the foreign version, but there are things that, as an American, read truer to me here. The bullying, for one. We’re really good at that.

My only real faults with Let Me In is that it missed the chance to incorporate more of the stuff from the book. But again, I can see how that would be difficult from both a rating and runtime perspective.

What’s good about Let Me In is great. What’s just OK is still leaps and bounds above any genre exercise I’ve seen lately (well, besides House of the Devil, which is just that: an exercise).

This film is clearly not for Americans, even the American version. It was very difficult to watch with an adult audience who were far lest sophisticated than the 12 year-olds onscreen. That’s fine, I’ll end up owning it anyway, which will let me compare and contrast to my black heart’s content. For now, I’ll simply recommend that you see it.

One final takeaway: Americans have a far higher tolerance for explicit violence than we do even the hint of sexual deviance. I’ll leave viewers of both films to grok my meaning.

Gary Lachman

We at The Contrarian are huge fans of Gary, as are many of our readers. Which is why we’re so delighted that he took time from his ridiculously busy schedule to answer a few questions about his new book and its perennially enigmatic subject.

——————————————

The Contrarian: There’s not a shortage of books about Carl Jung, with each subsequent entry purporting to be the definitive biography. What about your book stands out in this crowded field?

Gary Lachman: Rather than avoid talking about Jung’s “mystical” or “occult” inclinations, as some books on him do, or use them as a stick to beat him with, or applaud them uncritically, or explain them away, I take them seriously, and try to place Jung in the context of other “mystical” teachers, like Rudolf Steiner and Gurdjieff. I also ask why Jung seemed to have had a profound ambivalence about them, why publicly he insisted repeatedly that he was a scientist and not a mystic, yet among his close circle presented a different attitude.

TC: Individuation is Jung’s term for an alchemical-style process in which the components of one’s “spirit” and psyche are melded in a more holistic comprehension of self. How much of a believer are you in this transformation?

GL: If you’re asking if I believe in self-transformation, the answer is yes. I think you can understand individuation as broadly alchemical, in the sense that it involves bringing together opposites and creating something new out of the encounter. I don’t think you need to use alchemical language or concepts in order to do this, though. Individuation is about “becoming who you are” — it’s the same as Abraham Maslow‘s notion of self-actualization. It means becoming “you” and not merely a copy of the people around you.

TC: Jung is also known for his theory of the collective unconsciousness, or “world psyche,” in which the contents of our individual minds correlate at a deeper level through communal archetypes. Is there a dissonance between the idea of a shared spirit-map and the subjective experience of individuation, in which transformation is different for different people? Did you find any evidence in your studies of Jung attempting to reconcile these potentially contrasting ideas?

GL: I don’t see them as conflicting. It is precisely the collective unconscious that one individuates from, as it were. You individuate by becoming aware of the influence of the collective unconscious, the deeper forces at work in the psyche. By becoming aware of them and incorporating them consciously, one becomes an individual.You are not then pushed around by them without a clue, as most of us are most of the time.

TC: Jung seems to have spent a great deal of energy trying to dodge the mystic tag he was so often flagged with. How do you think he’d have dealt with the Aquarian-age co-opting of his concepts? If he were around today, would he be Grand Poo-Bah of Burning Man or an embittered shut-in?

GL: I think Jung would have been pleased that his ideas have become so fundamental to modern spirituality, but he would have shaken his head at raves and such. Individuation is hard work and it means confronting yourself, society, and the cosmos on your own. He enjoyed a good party but like anything of value, individuating is something one does on one’s own. I’m sure Burning Man and so on are great fun, but I don’t know how useful mass events are in “becoming who you are.” Jung, remember, spent a great deal of time in solitude in his famous tower at Bollingen.

TC: To me, Jung is the preeminent cartographer of the human mind. In fact, I’m always puzzled that he has so many critics who are quick to dismiss his work while swooning for far nuttier stuff. Why do you think he’s had such difficulty being accepted by either the scientific or spiritual mainstream?

GL: I don’t know that he hasn’t been accepted by the “spiritual mainstream,” whoever that means. He opposed the reductionist, materialist “scientistic” view, so it’s no surprise many scientists consider him a flake. I think Jung is a rare character, someone who applied scientific rigour to spiritual concerns. Sadly many “spiritual” people are disinclined to think, so they may adopt Jungian ideas like synchronicity without really thinking about them, or about anything else for that matter.

TC: Leading neuroscientists have embraced the idea of brain plasticity as a means of dealing with the “reformatting” of troublesome mental “programs,” i.e., neuroses. Plasticity is not a new concept; Buddhists have for centuries advocated for practices that allow thought to be neutrally observed and new mental habits established. In light of meditation, mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy, are Jung’s self-initiated breakdowns perhaps unnecessarily messy?

GL: Jung didn’t offer his “method” as one appropriate for everyone, and he often said that most neuroses were probably better treated by other means, even Freudian ones. But if you want to discover your unconscious and have some idea what’s going on in it and how you can develop a vital, creative, and surprising relation to it, he believed you needed to meet it face to face, as it were. He certainly wouldn’t have wanted active imagination to be seen as a “technique.” Becoming who you are isn’t something you can do when necessary. You either become who you are or you don’t.

TC: Speaking of self-initiation, Jung was also big on highly personal information, whether it be drawings, sculptures, mandalas or secret linguistics. Does sharing the semantic code with others somehow lessen its alchemical potency?

GL: I think some symbols discovered in dreams etc can have a collective meaning, but many are metaphors about your own life and are surprisingly specific, as if the intelligence responsible for them is speaking directly to ‘you’. At least in my own case I have always been stunned by the aptness of imagery in dreams and how they use jokes, plays on words, visual gags, to make a point. I am repeatedly reminded that what I call “my unconscious” is an independent, living intelligence that more times than not knows more than I do. Jung also believed it was important to have a ‘secret’, something of deep significance that you kept to yourself. This creates a kind of inner pressure that fuels individuation. It’s something he shares with most esoteric teaching. We all know the devaluing effect of telling a particularly important dream to someone else, how it often loses its “charge.” Pearls before swine, and all that.

TC: What do you think of the Red Book? I have it, but feel like I need to take a vacation in order to properly experience its contents.

GL: I think it is a remarkable record of one remarkable person’s encounter with a formidably remarkable living intelligence that just happened to have resided in his head.

TC: When it comes to transformations, you’re certainly no slouch. Going from punk rock star to distinguished esoteric historian is hardly a typical career arc. Could you offer a word of advice or encouragement to others on a less-than conventional path?

GL: Well, in the first case I never was a “star.” I made a not inconsiderable contribution to pop music, but was never a celebrity. But my basic advice is to listen to your “self” and do your best to become who you are. Don’t be afraid of taking risks or of disappointing other people, especially your friends. My interest in music and performing is part of the same impulse that later led me to write. It’s a need for self-expression combined with an appetite for ideas. I was always interested in the kind of thing I write about now, but I needed to mature in order to do it. I have nothing against pop music, but there’s only so much you can say in a song. Now I have 80,000 – 100,000 words. You may not be able to dance to it, but it is very satisfying to collect all your thoughts on, say, Jung and organize them into a book that, with any luck, others will get something out of.

“This guy basically solves the complicated perplex that is rock and roll music. I might be the only person who truly enjoys this stuff, for I am a scientist.”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-OwJx50VNg

“This guy” happens to be lo-fi psych hooligan Brother JT, who I actually used to listen to quite a bit. Glad to see he’s still completely fucking nuts.

Got stung by a pair of ailments last week: a low grade stomach thing and the return of my arch nemesis, lower back pain. When my back goes out of whack, it does so in a big way — near-crippling shocks of lumbar torment that leave me bedridden or hobbling around like a geriatric searching for a lost contact lens.

But let’s talk about records, which I haven’t done since I “retired” from criticism.

I really love the new Field Music release, Measure. In fact, it’s probably the first album I’ve heard in a long while that truly speaks to me. I read somewhere that the brain doesn’t make impressions as readily as one gets older, which is why young people experience such a remarkable bond with music as they discover things for the first time. At the ripe old age of 35, my aptitude for deep sonic impact may be compromised. Nevertheless, Measure wormed a hole into my gray matter, and for this I am glad.

Field Music is David and Peter Brewis of Sunderland, UK — home of a few “indie landfill” bands that I don’t care to mention. Happily, the Brewis brothers don’t like “indie” music either, which is probably one of the reasons I relate to their work.

Earlier Field Music albums had a maximalist, pop-prog bent — think XTC and mid-period Bowie without the coke demons.

I’ve tried my damndest to appreciate XTC, but they really just annoy me. It’s music that’s so up its own ass that it can barely breathe. Field Music, on the other hand, have a much keener understanding of space and dynamics, which makes their cleverness and dexterity far more enjoyable then their mod-pop progenitors.

Field Music’s previous release, Tones of Town, was a critical fave, but the brothers decided to take a three-year hiatus right as things were really starting to cook. “Taking a break was a way of reasserting that the music itself is more important than the myth of being a band, and that ideas should always come before genre classification,” David Brewis explains. “So many bands seem to decide on their “genre” before they’ve played a note, which seems ludicrous to me.”

I’m also impressed that they refuse to act like hooligans to fit into the Northern English stereotype of laddish rockers. “I don’t see why someone can’t be Northern and working-class and also be intelligent and care about art,” Brewis says. Hey, that’s always been my policy.

Measure is an irresistibly taut affair that retains some of the XTC affectations, but also evinces serious riff science. Zeppelin-isms abound, but not the cock rock, lemon-squeezing kind. This is the martial, math-rock side of Zep — the ab-flexing discipline of Presence and the harmonious twang of Houses of the Holy. I suppose Field Music could be termed progressive rock, but this has nothing to do with woodland creatures, fog and Mellotron. They’re prog like early-to-mid period Sparks are prog. Like that semi-famous brotherly duo, Field Music trade in the feminization of “Hammer of the Gods” guitar heroism and a grad-school level deconstruction of hard rock tropes. (I’d say that they also deconstruct XTC, but that band came pre-deconstructed.)

The brothers play all the instruments between the two of them (I play all the instruments between the one of me). Brewis’ reasoning makes perfect sense: “People ask why we played everything on the record ourselves rather than using the band, but mostly I think it would be cruel to torture our friends in that way! We have such clear ideas about how we want the parts on the record; we’d just be sitting there saying ‘no, no, play it more like this’ — i.e. ‘play it more like me’ — for hours on end!”

Measure is packed with bendy, turnabout riffs, shrewdly subdued harmonies and literate yet impressionistic lyrics. Restraint is the band’s true strength — the music is incredibly sophisticated on pretty much every level, but never over the top. And they do rock, albeit in a very gentlemanly way. I am pretty much over live music, but when these guys come to town I’m there. Sometimes you can just tell that a band will be incredible live. Field Music is one of those acts.

Buy this now, wherever you buy stuff.

Here’s a video for one of their poppier cuts from the new record:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JV3dPrR0PY

And a live cut from a London in-store, where you can get a better sense of the time signatures and riffery:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkoCTLgx2Ls

And another:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FunXXF2IXdw

Katie is my favorite Twitter buddy, because she’s stunningly witty with a mere 140 characters and makes me laugh so hard the single-malt shoots out of my nose (yes, it stings). She also has fine taste in music, and regularly shows Brooklyn what-for. Here’s her brief tour of the records that mattered in the first decade of the millennium.

Picks after the jump.

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If there is a signature aughts sound, and there isn’t, it’d be a kind of mashed-up, post-everything glamour. The ’00s, we’ll tell the kids, sounded like “Stronger.” They sounded like “SexyBack” and “Paper Planes” and “Feel Good Inc.” and “Take Me Out.” They tried to make us go to rehab, and they don’t love you like I love you, and 1, 2, 3, 4, and does that make me crazy? (Probably.) Take this as a shallow anthropology of the aughts — or a personal confession. Call it How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Pop Music.

Eminem, The Eminem Show
I mean, his alter ego has an alter ego. Come on. The Eminem Show is Mathers’ effort to make us aware of his self-awareness, once and for all. It is also one of the wittiest, most exuberant, most maddening, and greatest mainstream hip-hop albums I can think of. I always loved it, but it took me the better part of this decade to admit it.

PJ Harvey, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
These songs sound how falling in love feels.

Queens of the Stone Age, Lullabies to Paralyze
I know I’m supposed to say Songs for the Deaf or Rated R. But Lullabies to Paralyze is one of my all-time favorites. Why? “Tangled up in Plaid,” that’s why. For starters.

If Songs for the Deaf was imagined as a road trip to the desert, tuning in forgotten radio stations and ingesting trucker drugs, Lullabies is what happens when they reach their hot, dark destination and begin the party in earnest. Mark Lanegan’s whiskeytone bewitches on the opener. Josh Homme’s coven of vaguely predatory burnouts beckons. I was under the spell of this record for two years straight without realizing it. It smolders.

Madvillain, Madvillainy
Nonstop mental capers. I couldn’t even choose my 5 favorite songs. But if you don’t love “Raid,” “Shadows of Tomorrow” or “All Caps,” your ability to love is broken.

Radiohead, Kid A
I’m trying not to pick anybody else’s picks. And I’m trying to find better words than “special” and “important,” because I know how that sounds. But I can’t. This is The Record, it seems.

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Katie Ehlers lives in Brooklyn and is into really obscure things you’ve probably never heard of, such as sandwiches and The Beatles. By day, she works in book publishing. By night, she also works in book publishing, but more drunkly. She plays bass and writes songs, but is neither proficient enough to work as a studio musician, nor attractive enough to form her own band. She is sorry about that. You have no idea.

Well, we started out with Fugazi‘s latest/last (?) album, The Argument. You could look at Fugazi’s entire catalog from this album and see in crystalline vision the sum of it’s parts. It’s as though they explained everything. Even now, each time I hear this record I relive the entire span of my deep love of this band, and, like when I first bought it, can listen to it over and over and over again and still feel excited.

Jimi Hendrix‘s sister gained control of his catalog and reissues began to emerge with wonderful rare tracks, heavy vinyl, and lush packaging incorporating handwritten mementos and fabulous photos. Jimi is proof of Intelligent Design.

I collected many copies of Sly and the Family Stone‘s boggling There’s A Riot Goin’ On and Bob Marley‘s simmering Catch A Fire on vinyl etc. This is a sweet sickness. I love revolution records.

El-P offered his incendiary first solo effort, Fantastic Damage. This is one of my top ten records of all time; it always gave me courage and clarity. I went to NYC several times to catch El’s rare performances (despite what he says, he never played in Burlington while I lived there). Visiting this incredible city was a great inspiration for me to move here, which has made me very happy. Eventually I got to hear him play “Tuned Mass Damper” live and again, I felt a huge weight lifted from me.

More memories after the jump…

Mike Patton, another dark genius and vocal gymnast, had a lot going on that I loved. I saw Fantômas open for Tool on their tour for Lateralus, which was just an Awesome Assault.

Outkast‘s Stankonia blew our lives open. Finally: a dirty, filthy, hard-hitting funk record for our generation. They changed the game for everyone.

Mos Def. Love Mos Def. Black On Both Sides, his single with DJ Shadow from The Private Press, his show with Black Jack Johnson at Higher Ground. The hip-hop coming out of California at that time was exciting too, with absolutely grand live shows from Blackalicious and Jurassic 5 and many others from the groovy sun-drenched West Coast.

Had a great time DJing on Free Radio Burlington with Mothertrucker on our Friday night show, “Two Chicks From The Sticks.” Blending Burroughs with all the dark disruptive beats from Anticon and Stone’s Throw and Def Jux, on sentimental nights ending with the Commodores’ “Night Shift,” the bounce, the funk, the gospel, the metal and the Pointer Sisters. The Cancer Conspiracy, Carrigan, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, the Coup, Public Enemy, DJ Spooky, the Dischord box set, Fela Kuti, Harry Belafonte, Odetta, Nina Simone, and the Four Tops. Susumu Yakota, Gong, Motown, Stax, deep blues, that crazy Spiderman record and all that crazy cheap dusty shit we bought in Montreal or rescued from the VPR record fair. But really, I digress.

Indie Rock and IDM were huge and virtually impossible to split into categories. Meanwhile, I was cleaning up the R&B albums in the 45s and the $3 bin at Pure Pop. I was becoming a super nerd, reading a lot of copies of Mojo and listening to Can. I’m not really into irony. So I was really into my head cans, my CD shelves, my record player and it’s accoutrements.

Mia Sladyk convinced me to go see My Morning Jacket one night. I wasn’t going out very much at that time (see above). I had peripherally enjoyed their albums as my friends played them in the coffee shop, thinking it sounded like a nice tribute to Neil Young. But when I got to the show, there was a mix tape playing of Ray Charles and The Staples Singers , and the five hirsute (some barefoot) gentlemen opened with Prince‘s “I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man.” I was shocked to find how well they did it, and how the show became more soulful and exhilerating as the hours surged by. So that’s where my head has been since that fair evening, and in the wake of bearded bands that has followed them. My collection has expanded quite a bit along the lines of folk instrumentation and multi-part vocal harmonies in that context. And the band pairs like a fine wine with the long pined-for Soul Revival we have been experiencing via Daptone, Numero, and the singers and songwriters emerging with new verve. Seeing My Morning Jacket live is the most fun thing to do in the entire world, and their music has been the soundtrack to many indescribable times in my rich life. For an album, I’m going to say Z, though I’m not going to live without a single one of them.

I’m always looking for beats, beats, psychedelic music, insightful lyrics, soaring vocals, harmonies, incredible instrumentation skill, passion, and dance floor burners. I want to tear a hole in the dance floor. And yes, I said beats twice, so you wouldn’t miss it. There have been many mind-blowing albums and artists from the last decade, and certainly further back, that I have missed. I’m excited to become acquainted with all of them, and to see what the kids come up with next. As a wise five-year old once said, “It could be magic, could be nothing.” These last few years have been nothing but magic, so I’m assuming things will keep rolling along in that direction.