About two weeks ago, somewhere in the outskirts of Yakima Washington, the enigmatic Naomi Notman held the plastic speaking receiver to her ear -projecting her voice out over the air and telephone lines; a voice stretching out over a hundred and twenty miles to my ear. “Hello” She said… She sounded lethargic and there was a faint echo coming through the receiver. Though we hadn’t spoken in probably a few years and we were once fairly close, I knew she would likely have very little to discuss and inevitably it would likely feel as though we’d never met. “Nothing interesting ever happens anymore” She said. “That’s just kind of the way things are.” When I first heard her music, Naomi Notman was going by the alias ThoRn; a street performing gutter … Read entire article »

I used to cry at the weirdest shit when I was about three years old and it was like no emotion I can really point to anymore. Nothing hurts quite the way it did when I was a little boy. The memory is super vivid though. One instance in particular. There was this song playing in one of the bedrooms of my grandparent’s house inThousand OaksCalifornia. Something with an orchestral swelling and there was this woman singing. … Read entire article »

A while back it occurred to me that music is basically nothing more than sounds organized into patterns that repeat… simple enough. Its noise that’s meant to be formulaic to a degree, but in quality, it actually has very little to do with suitable tones; and I was thinking about how -depending on the scale of the region- certain music can be considered off key or out of tune anyway; Now it’s evolved passed that. Passed keys, passed scales; and the shit just keeps going and going; changing and twisting and contorting with every grubby human hand that touches it… and its beautiful… So unbearably fucking heart wrenchingly beautiful. … Read entire article »